


Waiting for an Indication

by Elucreh



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Other, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-02
Updated: 2010-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-10 08:52:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elucreh/pseuds/Elucreh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which, being in love can be a blissful experience, a pain in the ass, hard work, drawn-out agony, and much else besides; also in which, people do not tell the whole truth, polyamory is awesome, songs are written, and Ryan stores his paisley boxers with the cheese grater.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ryan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArsenicJade](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ArsenicJade).



> With thanks to my pre-reading team for guessing and guiding and asking and pushing and noticing and poking — this would never have been written without them. Thanks to shihadchick, in particular, because I suddenly flipped out and made it all her job. Thanks also to shihadchick, mrsquizzical, katrin and trinity_clare for the beta. Extra special thanks to the artist and mixers who did such amazing work. Title from Fastball's "Out of My Head"
> 
> For arsenicjade, with more love than I can possibly express.

**PART ONE: RYAN**

 

When the flare of jealousy comes, it's out of nowhere.

Ryan's been house-hunting all day, despite the fact that his plane left Vegas at ass o'clock to get him to the office of his and Eric's realtor by nine. It's getting late, almost one, and Ryan's sitting cross-legged on Shane and Brendon's kitchen counter, talking to Shane about the houses they saw today: location, light, space. Shane's nodding and asking questions as he toys with his beer; Dylan comes up and lays her nose in Shane's lap, pawing softly at his thighs.

"You don't need _that_ much yard space just for Hobo, though, do you?" Shane says, rubbing an affectionate hand over her head.

"Nah, but...I dunno, I kind of like the idea of space for parties, or barbecues or whatever."

Spencer wanders in, ready for bed in just soft sweatpants, and takes a glass from the cupboard. "You hate having people in your space, Ryan," he says, patiently. They've already had this discussion on the ride home. "You don't throw parties in your home."

"I don't mind _family_," Ryan retorts. "There's a lot more of that around in L.A."

It's true--it's not just the Wentzes and the Urie-Valdes household and Spencer, wherever in the area he'll land. Greta's moving out in a little while, and half the techs and merch people and security they've toured with in the past five years are settled somewhere in L.A., most of them hoping to break. Then, too, all the members of Decaydance and everybody they've ever toured with spends at least a few weeks with Pete a year, besides the time they spend recording from label apartments. If they could just get Carol to find a job up here, so that Zack could be here full-time, and convince the Smiths to leave Nevada...

"You will mind when Pete wants Bronx's fifth birthday party at Uncle Ryan's house."

"Why should he, Pete has twice as much space--"

"Pete's _Pete_."

Ryan sticks his tongue out. "I can say no to Pete, jackass."

Spencer pushes his glass against the ice dispenser and smirks. "I would _love_ to see you try."

"I'd kind of like to see that, too," Brendon says, filling the doorway with his big grin and pink underpants. They've all given up making Brendon wear pants in the house. He waggles his eyebrows. "You coming to bed?"

Shane looks at Ryan. "Finish telling me tomorrow?"

"Sure." Ryan nods.

"Want me to show you your room? Brendon told you all we've got is the air mattress, right?"

"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger," Ryan says solemnly. "Besides, Spencer's been sleeping on it for weeks, right? He isn't dead yet."

"Spencer's in with us, actually," Brendon says, leering, and Ryan's about to roll his eyes when he realizes that Shane has reached out, caught Spencer's wrist with a casual proprietary hand. Brendon reaches for Spencer's other hand and starts tugging, leading his lovers, _both_ of them, shit, toward the stairs. "Second door on the right, Ross," he tosses over his shoulder, and Ryan's too busy stopping himself from punching Brendon in the face to answer him.  
~*~*~*~  
Spencer has always been Ryan's.

Ryan's best friend, his bedrock, his sidekick, his security blanket, his partner in crime. Ryan's.

It felt only natural, seventeen and his world spinning insanity around him, to have Spencer's shy kisses, too. Lying in the dark, Spencer's sweat-sticky skin soft beneath his fingers and a mild ache in his ribs from his dad's bender the night before, it seemed like the easiest thing in the world to kiss back, to suck on Spencer's earlobes and bite his navel, to accept the soft scrape of Spencer's teeth over his chest and laugh together at the way it made his dick jump. To play in that safe space, the still spot at the center of the whirl of fucking _pubescence_ that was his life.

And if a little later, high as a kite on Spencer's tongue and touch, he ducked under the covers and took Spencer's cock into his mouth, so what?

After all, Spencer's always been Ryan's.  
~*~*~*~  
They're meeting the realtor again in the morning, and Ryan cheerfully kidnaps Spencer away from his coffee and cold Pop Tarts for pancakes and sausage at IHOP before they meet her.

The waitress is stupidly perky for that hour of the morning, and Spencer just stares at her blearily for a minute before slumping face-first onto the tabletop, one arm sprawling across to the other side.

Spencer doesn't actually like to eat much in the morning, before his stomach wakes up. Ryan pats him soothingly on the back of the hand and orders him two pancakes and "coffee, like, immediately. In a gallon jug, if possible." She takes Ryan's order, too, and smiles kindly at the top of Spencer's head before she goes to find the coffee jug.

"Soooooooo..." Ryan says, teasing.

Spencer grunts and sort of bats at the air to Ryan's left. Ryan graciously waits for the coffee to come, and even lets Spencer drink half a mug's worth, before he starts again.

"Been getting a little two-end action?" he asks, careful to keep his tone tilted toward amused.

Spencer's bloodshot eyes glare at him over the edge of his mug.

"It's not _my_ fault you were up all night," Ryan points out.

If anything, Spencer's glare intensifies. "I was not."

Ryan contents himself with raising an eyebrow.

"Dude, I had to be up at the asscrack of dawn; don't you ever sleep with anybody you're sleeping with?"

Something in Ryan's heart clenches, and he smirks to cover the pause. "So you're cuddlers, then?"

Spencer rolls his eyes. "It's _Brendon_. It's a good thing he's an electric blanket, too, he kicks the covers."

"Hmmmm, and is it hot in other ways?"

Spencer's head drops to the table. "Are we still fifteen? Do you need me to tell you how it feels when there's a mouth on your neck and your cock at the same time?"

Ryan kicks him. "I am just making sure that everything is consensual and respectful between the three of y--"

Spencer kicks him back. "I'm a willing participant, okay? Shut up."

"And you didn't tell me because..."

"Because you suck at keeping secrets from Brendon."

Ryan cocks his head. "You're sleeping with him and Shane, and he doesn't _know_?"

Spencer sighs and sets his coffee down. "You'll really try not to let him know?"

Ryan glares at him.

"Fine."

The waitress comes up and sets their breakfast on the table. Spencer leans back, and smiles to dismiss her when she asks if they need anything else. He takes a deep breath, and blows it out slowly. Ryan stabs his sausage with a fork and waves it at Spencer in a vaguely threatening manner.

"I'm trying to lure him into a sense of security."

Ryan chokes.

It takes him a few minutes of fighting with the half-chewed sausage, and then gulping at his orange juice, to soothe his throat and get his breath back, but the minute he's succeeded he demands, "You want to make it _serious_? Like, maybe — like, for real?"

Spencer sighs and pokes at his pancakes. "If I can. I don't know. But I kind of think if anybody can, it's me, you know?"

Ryan sits back and studies him. He thinks about Spencer, who Brendon relies on and trusts, who is so good at taking a tangled psyche and smoothing it down. He's never doubted that Spencer could fix anybody, if he wanted to try. And if Spencer really wants this--

"Yeah," he says softly. "Yeah, I think you can make it work."  
~*~*~*~  
It's almost normal, this conversation, almost just like always.

Almost like being out on tour, in the early days, packing for another long day, Ryan with his head under the bed, looking for the pink belt Spencer had used to tie him to the headboard the night before.

"Jac's coming, we should double," he called to Spencer, who was brushing his teeth with a lot of enthusiastic spitting.

"What?" Spencer poked his head around the door of the hotel bathroom, mouth shiny with toothpaste. Ryan smiled at him.

"Jac's coming out today, you want to bring Kyle to dinner?"

Spencer raised an eyebrow. "You think Jac and Kyle will have a lot to say to each other?"

Ryan sighed. "I hardly _know_ Kyle and I hate being odd man out. It's the perfect solution!"

"No, no, it isn't." Spencer leaned back against the door frame and crossed his arms. The hem of his pink t-shirt rode up and showed the curve of his belly, Ryan's red mouthprint stark against the pale skin. "If you're interrogating Kyle, that leaves me with Jac. And she hates my guts."

"Oh, she does _not_." But Ryan didn't pursue the subject any further, stuffing the belt into his duffle and zipping it shut.

Spencer just rolled his eyes and disappeared back into the bathroom.

"Drugstore run?" Ryan called.

"Yeah, we're almost out of lube, and you hate that flavored stuff Kyle likes. And get me some of that detangling spray? And you used up the last of the cinnamon floss yesterday."

"Got it."

Ryan went to the bathroom door for a minute, and watched Spencer poking at his hair. Spencer looked at him in the mirror. "What?"

"You won't let me interrogate him. What are you hiding? Is he good enough for you?"

Spencer grinned. "His _tongue_ is--"

"Shut up." He landed a friendly punch. "I'm just checking. I thought you were pretty serious about Haley."

"I like her, yeah, but--she's grounded, you know? In one place. I can't ask her to wait around. Maybe we'll try, if we're ever in the same place long enough, but in the meantime..." he shrugged, turned to smile at Ryan instead of his reflection. "Kyle's tongue. And if I'm really desperate I can fall back on _you_."

Ryan stuck his tongue out, and pushed off, dismissing the whole issue. It was pretty obvious that Spencer wasn't taking Kyle any more seriously than the half a dozen other people he'd slept with, than he would any of the guys and girls between then and now. Even Haley, when they tried, had never really made it past a really good friend Spencer slept with sometimes.

That's what's different. This time, Spencer wants to try.  
~*~*~*~  
Ryan's so frustrated by their house hunting that Spencer offers to cook when they get home, one of Ryan's secret favorites from before he could afford fine dining and decided his favorite was something unpronounceable and French.

Brendon and Shane come in halfway through the process, chattering at each other about gummy bears. Ryan sighs melodramatically, and Brendon comes over and drapes an arm over his shoulders. "What's wrong, Ryan?" he asks sympathetically, making an exaggerated tragedy face.

"I hate Eric," Ryan tells him.

Shane snorts, kicking the refrigerator door shut and handing Brendon a beer. "Spencer's cooking, it must be bad."

Spencer makes a face at him. "Dude, I was there. The day did indeed suck out loud."

"How is that Eric's fault?" Shane asks mildly.

"Mostly it's that the real estate lady is a twit." Spencer grabs another pepper and puts it in front of Shane. "Chop. I don't want Brendon anywhere near a knife."

"But Eric chose the real estate lady, so it's his fault, and I hate him," Ryan repeats stubbornly.

"I'm pretty sure you just walk in and they sign you up for the nearest agent, Ryan," Brendon says, amused. "And I'm also pretty sure Pete recommended the agency."

"Whatever."

Spencer flicks a bit of carrot at him. "You don't get to hate Eric just because Luanna is obnoxious, Ry. He's picked out some decent places."

"If only Luanna didn't come with them." The woman's been treating him like some kind of brain-damaged puppy all day.

Brendon pokes his side. "Come on, tell us about the houses. We'll go T.P. her trees later."

Ryan laughs. "Yeah, okay. We've seen nine so far, and we've got it narrowed down to three."

"And five to see tomorrow," Spencer reminds him. "And she said there's one up the canyon we won't see until next week."

Ryan groans and buries his hands in his hair. "Do I even want to live in a canyon? Doesn't living away from people mean, like, planning your groceries ahead? Do I have to get a Costco membership and buy two thousand Hot Pockets?"

"Yes." Spencer reaches over to smack the top of his head. "I should have made you do it a long time ago anyway. Don't think I'm not aware of how often you've come over to my place because you ran out of toilet paper."

"Dude, seriously?" Shane's eyes are wide.

"If he wanted to fool me he should have taken a roll at a time, not, like, five." Spencer eyes Ryan sternly. "When you have your own house, you're buying a big freezer and a CostCo membership and I'm going to make you stock up for at least a year. Don't think you're getting out of it by moving next to a grocery store. I have no other way of ensuring you don't starve to death. EasyMac and HotPockets and frozen pizza, at least. You can get vegetables when you eat out."

"Yes, Mom," Ryan says, rolling his eyes.

"So he might as well look at the canyon house, is what you're saying?" Shane asks, nudging them back on track.

"Yeah. And I really liked the gray one, Ryan, with the porch?"

"No formal dining room."

"What the fuck do you need a formal dining room for?"

"...dining?"

"Are you planning to have it catered? I'm not going to come over and cook for you every night."

"Well..."

"It'll just become yet another place to stack your journals, and you know it. I want you to have an office so at least they can all belong in one place, even if you never actually put them there."

"We could turn one of the bedrooms into an office."

Spencer shakes his head. "You need at least two guest beds, and you're not gonna want somebody sleeping where you write. Get an older place that's intended to have an office."

Ryan sighs. "That knocks out the green one, doesn't it?"

"You _said_ you wanted a yard, anyway."

"Yeah, yeah."

"How is this working, exactly?" Brendon asks, frowning. "It sounds like you're deciding this without even _asking_ Eric."

"He picked 'em out," Shane tells him, chopping steadily. "He sent the listings to Ryan, and now the agent is taking him and Spence around to the houses he liked. Once Ryan narrows it down, they'll talk about it. It was just too hard to schedule them in the city at the same time."

"That makes sense." Brendon's hand snakes out to snatch a piece of pepper from the cutting board. Spencer smacks at his hand.

"Those are for frying."

"But I'm hungry _nooooooow,_" Brendon whines, pulling out the puppy eyes. Ryan snorts and butts Brendon's shoulder gently with his head.

"You are so two years old," he says, smiling affectionately.

Brendon shoves him back.

"Boys, no fighting in the house," Shane admonishes them, mock-stern. "Don't make me get out the weed."

Brendon and Ryan look at each other for a minute, then simultaneously start a slap-fight like seals on a sugar high. Brendon's laughing so hard he nearly falls off his stool.

Shane rolls his eyes. "Okay, okay." He goes over to a jar marked "LOVE" on the counter--one of a set Brendon's mom gave them also featuring PEACE and HOPE. Brendon thought putting the weed in the PEACE jar would be too obvious. The PEACE jar, if Ryan remembers correctly, contains enough Pixie sticks to send Brendon through the roof. Brendon's sense of subtlety baffles him.

Ryan's just about to get in a particularly flimsy slap to Brendon's nose when a bong appears between them. "Satisfied?" Shane asks, one eyebrow raised.

"Dude, I love you," Brendon says happily, snatching it and fumbling in his pocket for a lighter.

"Is that all it takes?" Shane teases. His tone is a little off, and Ryan looks at him sharply, but Shane is smiling like always. 'Bad day, but nothing too awful,' is Ryan's bet. Most days you can't even hear it.

Brendon, oblivious, is hogging the weed.

"Dude, pass it," Ryan says, snapping his fingers. "I helped you get that, it's mine, too."

"It is much too wonderful to share with skinny Ryan Rosses," Brendon says loftily, turning away.

"It is much too much for just one Brendon," Shane tells him. "Or do we want a repeat of the neon hippos incident?"

"_Fine._" Brendon hands it over, pouting.

"...I'm not going to ask," Ryan decides, taking a deep breath himself.

Spencer gives him a dark look. "You are wise," he says ominously.

Ryan's jaw drops open. "You know about it? I can't be the only one!"

Spencer looks at Shane, then exchanges a glance with Brendon. "It's a long story. And seriously, terrifying."

Ryan rolls his eyes.

"Oooo, _Fantasia,_" Brendon says, suddenly, and half-falls, half-slides off his stool. People should know better than to mention hippos when Brendon is smoking up.

Shane sighs. "I let him put a DVD player in the kitchen _why_?" he asks, a plaintive note to his voice.

"Take a hit," Spencer suggests. "It'll make sense soon."

"Right." Shane puts his hand out for the bong, and Ryan gives it to him. He doesn't mind; he kind of likes Fantasia, even when he's not completely high.

Brendon reappears in the doorway, having lost his shirt. "Classic, or 2000?"

"Spencer can't get high for a while," Ryan says sagely. "Better start with Classic."

"You are wise in the ways of Spencer Smith," Brendon says. "I shall bow to your wisdom."

He drops the DVD in and goes over to Shane, plucking the bong out of his hand and wrapping an arm around his waist. "Me too?" he says, grinning, and Shane leans over and blows the smoke he's been holding into Brendon's mouth, slow. Brendon leans into him just a moment too long.

Ryan takes the bong from Brendon's inattentive hand.

"You're lucky I like you, Ross," Spencer grumbles, scraping the chopped vegetables into the skillet. "Otherwise I'd steal that from you and let your dinner burn."

"You wouldn't do that to me," Ryan says, perhaps a little lower than he usually would. "You would never be mean to _me_, Spencer."

Spencer's eyes soften. "True."

The curtain rises on the screen, and the narrator walks out onto the stage. "Can we watch Mickey while we wait for the pot to kick in?" Ryan asks plaintively. "I promise we can come back to the orchestra and the abstract art."

Brendon gives him a look of patient long-suffering, but he reaches for the remote. He and Shane start an amicable argument about Regan's puppy requirements, and Spencer finds a wooden spoon and stirs the contents of his pan.

Ryan leans his head on one hand and watches Mickey, lugging heavy buckets and dreaming of controlling the skies. He's sad for Mickey, who has no idea what he's setting in motion. No idea at all.

"Brendon, come taste this," Spencer demands, scooping a bit of chicken out of the skillet and blowing on it. Brendon obeys him, taking the chicken between his teeth and chewing thoughtfully, then swallowing.

Spencer raises an eyebrow. "More soy sauce?"

"Taste for yourself," Brendon says, smiling his loose pot grin. He pops up on his toes and kisses Spencer deeply. Ryan can't help but stare for a minute; then he flushes and looks away. Shane is watching them, as he sometimes watches when Brendon is kissing someone, but somehow it's different. It's easy. Affectionate. Almost...hopeful. It's a lot harder to hate anything that makes Shane look like that.

_Damn. _  
~*~*~*~  
Ryan asked Shane about the others, once.

Looking back, he must have been something along the lines of falling-down drunk in that club--all of them prefer to stay a good football field away from the clusterfuck that is Brendon's sex life. Shane was nursing his third beer, Ryan moodily sipping brandy (an old man's drink, Brendon laughed at him), and the both of them watching Brendon play with a pendant on the string around a stacked girl's neck.

Shane rumbled out a laugh, soft and only a little bitter. "I spent a year filming him before I made a move, Ryan. I knew what I was getting into."

"Yeah, but--"

"I _made it anyway._ Bden--he's fucked up, okay? We're friends--he can have friends. We have sex--he can have sex. We love each other in a bromance kind of way, and he can do that too. But there's a little switch in his head about this relationship thing, and I'm not gonna flip it."

Ryan stared at him over the edge of the snifter, fuzzy pity sloshing inside his chest. He opened his mouth to say something--he still has no idea what--and Shane raised a hand to stop him.

"The first time Regan met him she went out and bought me a copy of _The Ethical Slut_, Ryan. We're all getting what we need...or at least, what he can take, I'm giving him. I get to touch and fuck and cuddle and talk, and everybody involved wears rubbers." He stopped, raised the bottle to his mouth for a swig. "Nothing's perfect, George Ryan Ross, no matter how much you dream."  
~*~*~*~  
The next week, late in the day, the real estate agent's car pulls to a stop in front of the house, and Ryan's jaw drops open slightly. He reaches blindly for Spencer's hand, and squeezes it tight. Spencer uses his other hand to pat Ryan reassuringly.

"...Mr. Ronick seemed to think you'd like it, which I suppose _you_ might..." Luanna is saying, as though she thinks there could be no clearer intimation that the place is in bad taste. Spencer's grip tightens, possibly to stop Ryan from flipping her the bird.

The house is beautiful. The windows and doors have bars of elaborate ironwork, with more on the potbellied balcony over the front door. The soft red-pink of the brick almost glows against its backdrop of trees. There's even a little window in the triangle of the roof, like every sad story about orphans ever written could have been set in the attic.

Spencer squeezes his hand again, and Ryan turns to look at him. Spencer is smiling his small smile; the smile he only ever has for Ryan, for Ryan when he's lost in an artistic haze or talking babytalk to Hobo. For Ryan when he's happy. "C'mon," he says softly. "Let's check out the inside."

Luanna's still talking, Ryan is vaguely aware, but he pushes past her into the house. He doesn't need a spiel. The halls are half-paneled, the banisters carved and spindly. The bedrooms upstairs are light and airy, the ceilings arch high above the beds.

"Ryan!"

He half-trips coming down the stairs, almost running into the door across the hall. He pokes his head inside, and stops breathing. Spencer's beaming at him. He smiles back, helpless.

"So?" Spencer asks, gesturing, and Ryan looks around them for the first time. It's a tiny office, made smaller by the sturdy built-in bookcases and cupboards. The desk in the corner is part of the shelving, with what seems like a dozen little drawers and pigeonholes.

"C'mon," Spencer says, and pulls him out the back through the sunny kitchen. There's a cobblestone patio with a hot tub, and enough lawn to throw a Frisbee, and beyond that there's woods and low shrubs. They stand there looking for a minute; Ryan catches a flicker of gray movement in the trees. _Birds_.

Spencer gives him a little shove toward the woods. _Go on_, he says, with a tilt of his head. Laughing half-incredulously, Ryan does, climbing through the tree roots and ancient weeds to the edge of a little half-cliff about four feet high. The air feels clean here, despite their relative proximity to the city; the leaves of the trees rustle in the wind. He takes a deep breath, absorbing the peace of it.

Having given him his moment, Spencer crunches up behind him. "It comes with two acres," he remarks, his tone suspiciously bland.

Ryan turns to him, his smile still wide on his face. "It's like Walden Pond," he blurts; Spencer doesn't even laugh at him.

"I'll go tell her you want to take it, shall I?"

Luanna is as much a twit about that as anything else--how does she sell houses, seriously?--but somehow Ryan doesn't mind as much now. He's found his house. A house. To be his.

They ride back down to the real estate office, where they've parked the car, in near-silence. The joy is bubbling inside Ryan like a merrily boiling pot, but he doesn't want to share it with Luanna. They thank her and shake hands and stand beside the car while she goes into the building, then turn at the same time to hug exuberantly.

"A house!" Ryan babbles, exultant. "It's perfect."

"Call Eric," Spencer tells him, unlocking the door. "And text everybody else. We'll tell Shane and Brendon when we get home, we'll go clubbing and celebrate."

The whole ride home, even with the horrible traffic, is gilded with the triumph of the day. Ryan leaves Eric a hasty voicemail and fires off a text to his "family" list. He spends the rest of the ride telling Spencer about what he wants to do with the house in exhaustive detail. Spencer nods, and laughs, and makes suggestions of his own--a new building in the woods for music, an external studio, is an awesome idea, though Ryan thinks it'll be a lot of work. Some of the rooms will need painting, and of course the people won't leave their awesome paisley curtains--"do you think we could buy them, Spence? Offer to throw in an extra hundred if they'll leave them up?"

Spencer is still mocking his gargoyle door knocker idea when they walk into the living room, where Brendon's waiting on the couch.

"Brendon!" Ryan almost carols. "We're going out to celebrate, we found a house, it's perfect, it's--"

Brendon is curled on his side, face half-buried in the back cushion of the couch.

Spencer's dropping beside him before Ryan has even managed to rearrange his facial expressions, wrapping an arm around his waist and putting a chin over his shoulder.

"What's wrong, Brendon?"

"Nothing." Brendon sits up and puts on his fucking interview smile. "A house, huh? That one up the canyon?"

"Shut up, Brendon," Spencer says, sharp. "Talk about what is bothering you or I will smother you myself."

"I'm just tired."

Ryan rolls his eyes. "We've spent the past four years living in very small spaces with you, Brendon." He sits gingerly down on Brendon's other side and puts a hand on his knee. "It's okay. You can talk to us."

Brendon sighs, looks down. "My sister's getting married," he says in a small voice. "I'm just a little--"

Ryan winces. He remembers the rules from Brendon's first sister's wedding. Brendon can't see the ceremony. He can't go in the temple.

"You'll still go," Spencer says, low and soothing in Brendon's ear. "You'll still go. You can be in the waiting room with the kids, they'll love that. And you'll be in all the stupid pictures and you can give the prettiest wedding present."

Brendon lets out all his breath at once, it seems like, and goes boneless against Spencer, letting Spencer support all his weight. "Yeah," he says, soft, but it isn't a sad word. Tired, maybe, but it hasn't completely lost hope.

The garage door rumbles on its way up, and Shane's camera bag makes a soft thump as it lands on the low shelf they keep for the expensive luggage dogs shouldn't drool on. "What's up, guys--" he stops in the doorway, taking in the scene, and makes an abortive movement toward Brendon.

Spencer rolls his eyes and yanks his head sideways, _C'mere, idiot_, and Shane approaches them warily. Ryan stands up and lets Shane slide into his place, and Spencer tips Brendon onto Shane's shoulder. Brendon snuggles in with a small sound of contentment, like a wet cat that's found a warm patch of sun. Spencer pats his shoulder, and Ryan stands awkwardly by, not sure how to respond.

After a few minutes, Brendon sits up. Shane catches his chin with one hand, makes Brendon look him in the eye. Whatever he sees appears to satisfy him, and he nods. Brendon darts forward impulsively, plants a kiss on the tip of Shane's nose.

"A house, huh?" He looks up at Ryan with a brave smile. "What was that about celebrating?"

Ryan looks at Spencer for his cue; Spencer looks at Shane, and then nods.

"We thought we'd go out," he says. "Find a club, decent music, get slightly smashed. What do you say? Get dressed up and paint the town red?"

"Dude, I am there," Brendon says, scrambling up. "First shower!"

"I swear to god, it's like tour never ends," Spencer says, but he's laughing.  
~*~*~*~  
Brendon was the first person to ever teach Ryan he couldn't be the most important person in the universe all the time, even for Spencer.

It wasn't that they hadn't had other friends; they had. It wasn't even that they hadn't fought, that Spencer had never shut him out, pointedly silent. But even when Spencer was ignoring him, he was putting more effort into being mad than into whatever he was pointedly doing instead of talking to Ryan. Spencer always had time, patience, attention for Ryan, always; in thirteen years, he had never once so much as said, "Hang on, let me finish." If Spencer was talking to someone else when Ryan entered a room, his body would angle toward him, even if he kept up his polite conversation.

But Brendon came. He came and wormed his way into their affections, created new inside jokes _between the three of them_, came to them for comfort and for celebrations. Suddenly, their small universe was centered on three points instead of two, suddenly someone besides Spencer and Ryan _mattered_.

Ryan liked Brendon, he did; no one could ever have disturbed that perfect equilibrium if he hadn't liked them. Brendon was just as important to Ryan, and so Ryan let him in. Ryan shared.

And then, one day, Ryan actually had to cough to attract Spencer's attention. It was a shock to his system.

Nowadays, Ryan recognizes that moment as probably his first step toward adulthood. At the time, sunk in self-important teenage angst, it had _hurt._ Mostly it made him treat Brendon like crap and cling to Spencer like a drowning man, which was none too pleasant for anybody. However, as the first realization that other people could be important, too, it held significance.

Ryan isn't all grown up now, not by a long shot — he's only twenty-two, and still pretty fucked in the head, emotions-wise. But he'd really thought that, in five years of expanding that tiny two-person universe, letting it grow to include so many, that he was past that first reaction.

It's kind of a letdown, realizing that — at the most visceral level — he hasn't grown up at _all_. It still hurts like hell.  
~*~*~*~  
They get to the club just as it's warming up; Brendon picked the place. He knows the DJ — of course he knows the DJ — and he promised the drinks would be decent. The place is half-lit and almost crowded, the dance floor already busy. The music's loud and the bass is strong; this isn't a place you come to for conversation. This is a place you come to get laid.

They crowd into a booth lined with smooth purple leather, and wave down a waitress to take an order for drinks and onion rings. Brendon's twitchy, more than usual, hands restlessly tapping a different beat than the one playing over the speakers. He hardly waits to snatch an onion ring and down his first glass before he's sliding out onto the dance floor, nearly disappearing in the crowd. The only reason he's still visible is the flaming red of his shirt, like a cardinal trying to attract a mate.

Spencer and Shane are talking about their film, and Ryan tries to distract himself with peeling apart the layers of an onion ring, keeping an idle eye on Brendon's shirt. Brendon's thrown himself into it already, no need to wait for the music to sweep him into unselfconsciousness. Brendon is always brimming with music, ready to overflow into melody or movement. From the way he's moving against that girl, it's pretty sure tonight's song is something dirty.

It's hardly a healthy coping mechanism, this, but Ryan has absolutely no idea what to do about it. He's seen it before, over and over again, when Brendon's reminded of the barrier he put between himself and his family. It's like, knowing he can't be as close as he wants to be, he flings himself in the opposite direction from what they want, what they are, instead. Brendon will be out on the floor tonight, getting steadily more drunk, offering his body up to the crowd for sinful contemplation, and then he'll go home with a stranger and fuck her--or his--brains out. Ryan's betting on a guy tonight, actually; the marriage and kids incidents always inspire a wistfulness that seems to hurt Brendon more than anything, to throw him as far away from what he wants as he can get.

Spencer and Shane have done some good between them, though, because Brendon's only on his second drink and he's already picked a target in the crowd, somebody tall and solid who's eying him like a cherry tomato. The more he's hurting, the more liquor it takes. Maybe he'll be able to fuck it out of his system without nearly dying of alcohol poisoning this time; that would be nice. When Brendon ran up against this wall the first time, he threw up for three days afterward.

Brendon's working his way over to big and blocky, now, his body language open, begging. His target's answering him _oh yeah_ and _don't have to say please_. Ryan's waiting for one of them to go in for the kill when a graceful hand taps Brendon on the shoulder.

Brendon turns--and Spencer's looking at him, one eyebrow quirked. He puts a hand on Brendon's waist, leans close to him and bends to murmur in his ear. And Ryan knows that move, he _taught_ Spencer that move, Spencer is saying something filthy. He can tell by way Spencer's lips stretch just a little too long over his "s"s, by the way he's letting his lips just brush Brendon's ear.

Ryan turns to see what Shane thinks of this new development, and Shane looks like a man who's been let off the rack. He stands up and heads over to his boyfriends, apparently in answer to a signal from Spencer. He crowds close behind Brendon, cutting him off from the crowd in a circle of his and Spencer's arms. His hips crowd up against Brendon's ass, and he bends his head, too, whispering almost close enough to Spencer's lips to be a kiss.

They're moving to the music together, Brendon and Spencer's steady beat pulling Shane with it. Brendon's back arches as he reacts to the close contact, the wet heat of Shane's tongue dragging itself up his neck to his jawline. He's forgotten about his target, who's looking more than a little put out, Ryan can see. Brendon's lost himself in burning touches, all right, but not from a stranger. He's going to fuck his way back to sanity with people he actually _loves_.

Ryan wants that for Brendon; he wishes he didn't resent it so much.  
~*~*~*~  
It's funny, almost. He never cared about who Spencer looked at when they were fucking each other.

"So I think," Spencer said once, breathless, his hand wet with biting it so his mom wouldn't hear them, "I think I'm like, bi or whatever."

Ryan froze and looked up at him, and then down below the stomach he'd been nuzzling to Spencer's red, straining cock, slick with the night's first orgasm. He raised his eyes to Spencer's again, and lifted one eyebrow. "You think?"

"Shut up, asshole, I mean, like, guys in general, I'm open."

Ryan hummed, losing interest in the conversation, and dropped back to sucking small, sore spots under Spencer's navel, where the red edges would peek out from under the waist of his jeans if Ryan could talk him into wearing a t-shirt just a little too small. He took the little curve of Spencer's belly between his teeth and twisted.

"I just--fuck, _Ryan_\--if we're experimenting, I think I solved for--_shit_\--o, as in orientation."

Ryan rolled his eyes and sat up. "Congratulations, you're officially bisexual," he said, punctuating it with a fast kiss. "You going to fuck me, or what?"  
~*~*~*~  
Ryan's turned away from his friends writhing on the dance floor, from the slight, dark-haired figure curled close in Spencer's arms, not thinking not thinking _not thinking_, suddenly aware of the grease and sweet onion juice spilling down his wrists. He snatches at a napkin and swipes at his fingers fastidiously. His phone vibrates against his hip, the quicksilver beat that means it's Keltie's ringtone. He gives his hands a last quick scrub and fumbles in his pocket for the phone, ducking out of the booth.

They'll text him when they're ready to drive home.

"Hey," he half-shouts, heading for the semi-quiet of the exit, stopping to get a green swamp creature stamped on his hand.

Keltie's laughter rings through the phone, clear as a bell despite the music all around him. Ryan can feel something roiling inside him go still again, and he half-smiles, shy and awkward like he's nineteen again, looking down at her and feeling small.

"Busy night?" she suggests.

"Something like that," he agrees, going out into the night with a whoosh into the cooler air. "We're celebrating, Spencer suggested we paint the town red."

"Celebrating?" she sounds puzzled, and he realizes he never texted her. "Did Shane stay up for a whole wave? I thought he was a slower learner than that."

"Shane is totally sticking his tongue out in Vegas's general direction without knowing why," he says, grinning. "No, I found a house!"

"Really?" she squeals. "Oh my _god_, tell me all about it! How could you not call me? I want to hear everything."

He laughs and starts in, the bricks and the iron bars, the woods and the drop into the canyon, the office with its hideyholes and the paneling in the hallways. She asks questions and "oo"s over the birds and is happy for him, interested, pleased, and something tight in his diaphragm eases a little. He asks about her apartment hunt, rehearsals, and Hobo, and lets her chatter wash over him.

"How is everybody?" she demands. "Has Spencer killed Brendon with a vacuum cleaner?"

The tightness jerks upwards abruptly. In his mind's eye, Spencer leans down to whisper into the dark hollow of an ear. For an instant, he thinks about telling her. He knows his voice won't give him away.

"They're okay," he says. "Tell me about Stacy's new boyfriend."  
~*~*~*~  
He's never told her why he's in love with her.

The day after the VMAs, still reveling in the success of his concept and their spectacular performance, Ryan burst into their shared hotel room and seized Spencer's lip between his teeth. Spencer kissed him back for a long minute, then pushed him away. "No, Ryan."

Ryan blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"You have a girlfriend," Spencer said, his voice a little pinched, but steady.

Ryan gave an incredulous little half-laugh. "Yeah, and? I've had girlfriends before. So've you. Since when does anyone else matter when it comes to you and me?"

"This one _should_." Spencer took a deep breath and expelled it violently. "I can't let you screw this up, Ryan. I can't be the reason you lose her."

"You've never cared about this before," Ryan said, his impatience starting to bleed through. "What's different this time?"

Spencer looked at him, straight and solemn, until Ryan's annoyance had quieted enough that he was listening. Spencer was good at that, he knew how to get Ryan's attention.

"She makes you happy, Ryan. She makes you _glow_. I've never seen this happen for you before, and I am _not_ going to let you screw it up, okay? You need to let her in, you need to keep her. You have to let her fix you."

"_You_ fix me," Ryan said, numbly. That was Spencer's job, it had always been Spencer's job.

"It's her turn," Spencer said firmly.

"Right." The room had gone fuzzy, somehow, cold and unreal.

Spencer gave him an awkward smile. "I'm going home tonight, okay? I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Right."

With some effort, Ryan untangled his limbs and walked Spencer to the door. He stood there and watched the little car drive away, still not quite able to comprehend what had just happened here.

Spencer had always been Ryan's. What Ryan had never before contemplated was that Spencer might not want Ryan to be his.  
~*~*~*~  
Ryan wakes up squinting in the late morning light, vaguely aware that he will soon be old enough not to be able to sleep on air mattresses without serious repercussions. The house is quiet around him, although the coffee is bubbling when he gets downstairs, and the dogs get up and start prancing around his feet. Ryan tries not to kick them and fumbles the pot loose, pouring into the Edgar Allen Poe mug Spencer (of course it was Spencer) left on the counter.

Once he's focusing a little better, he notices the lime green post-it on the coffeemaker. It only takes a few more sips to make Ryan able to read it. "Gone filming," the note says, obscenely cheery in its neon. "I knew you would forget. Remember to let the dogs out and I'll cut you in on the profits when our sex tape goes retail."

No signature, of course. The smiley face gives it all away. Ryan growls to stop himself from flinching and turns to stomp over to the refrigerator and possibly pour all Brendon's Red Bull down the sink.

His foot comes down on something warm and lumpy. There's a yelp, and then a brown and white streak bolts for the stairs. Ryan groans.

"I'm sorry," he calls, chasing Bogart up the stairs. Bogart's still a puppy. He needs to know Ryan didn't _mean_ to hurt him. It isn't the _dog's_ fault. Ryan lumbers after him, crouching, ungainly, trying to catch him so he can make friends again.

Bogart bolts for the third door on the left and Ryan follows, bursting in on a low, soft-shaded room. He's been avoiding Shane's room, half-unconsciously, since his first night. Since he found out. Clearly, that was the smart thing to do.

The sheets are tangled, strewn across the wide bed. It's been at least an hour since the others left, and the room still reeks of sex. The blinds are drawn, and it somehow makes it easy to see the hollows in the bed, to imagine Spencer mouthing his way down Brendon's thigh while Shane watches them. Ryan's frozen.

After a couple of minutes, Bogart pokes his nose out from under the bed, where he went to hide, and whimpers inquiringly. Dumb dog. It's like he doesn't even remember that Ryan stepped on him less than ten minutes ago.

Ryan scoops him up, on autopilot, and scritches the top of his head as he goes down the stairs. At half-speed, he settles on the sofa, Bogart squirming around to lick at Ryan's ear, trying to comfort him. Ryan sits and stares at the coffee table for a while. He's pretty sure it doesn't take him more than half an hour to recognize the fact that there's a laptop there. After a few minutes of staring at it, he reaches out and opens it, logging into Shane's guest account and opening up a word doc, staring at the screen. He wants to write about this. He can't write any kind of truth about it.

After a minute, he closes Word and opens a blogbox instead.  
~*~*~*~  
He tries to recapture how he felt about all of this before he found out. It was so easy to react to when it was just Brendon and his fucking ridiculous announcement.

"I'm moving to L. A.!" Brendon caroled down the line at him, and Ryan snorted and turned left into a Wendy's parking lot.

"Sure. I'll come visit after I spend time with Sisky in Tibet, okay?"

"No, I'm _serious_," Brendon insisted, and there was that rare note of truly rock-solid pouty conviction in his voice that made Ryan pull into a parking place instead of the drive-through lane.

"You're _serious_," he repeated dubiously.

"As a heart attack," Brendon said. "Regs finally made up her mind. She wants better work than she's getting here, and our people--" he broke off to laugh a little, because Brendon had never gotten used to having people--"our people say that agent who approached her is legit. So we're headed for the coast. I'm thinking of learning to surf, what do you think? Or boogie board. I kind of like the sound of boogie board."

Ryan was still blinking over the "we" in that statement, but he knew better than to ask any questions about Brendon's attitude towards having Shane as a permanent part of his life.

"Can you do the same kind of fancy stuff with a boogie board?" he asked instead.

"Fancy stuff? Like what?"

"Like...I don't know, Brendon. People do stunts in contests and stuff, right? Hanging ten. You can't tell me you've never wanted to hang ten, can you hang ten on a boogie board?"

"Hmmmmm," Brendon said, considering. "I shall think on this further. And look on Wikipedia."

"You do that," Ryan told him, letting his sense of Brendon-indulgence roll out under his tone and peering over his own shoulder so he could back up. "Look, I gotta go order a Frosty before this asshole in an SUV gets into the drive-through, but I'll call you later?"

"Sure," Brendon said. "Later, dude."

Ryan wound up behind the SUV after all, but it wasn't that big a deal. He leaned back against the headrest and hummed along absently with the song on the radio. He was thinking of Brendon and Shane in L.A., sun and warmth. A place to stay near Pete's and at least a dozen other people, without having to crash on Pete and his new pregnant wife, who Ryan was still uneasy around, unsure of how much of Pete he could claim now. He'd always hated taking up space in Pete's house anyway. But now he could call Pete to go out without fussing about whether he was demanding time Pete would rather spend with someone else.

They could maybe even record out there. Ryan smiled at the thought, at the idea of being surrounded by experts and really quality equipment to pick and choose from. He and Spencer and Jon could get an apartment nearby while they recorded.

He was still smiling when he rolled down the window and leaned toward the black mesh square. "Yeah, hi, can I get a Baconator Triple and a chocolate Frosty?"  
~*~*~*~  
When the house is finally his — finally, _finally,_ every stick of it — Ryan throws a party in the echoing living room and gets people too drunk to go home, taking a certain evil satisfaction in making Shane and Spencer sleep in sleeping bags on the wood floors. He's only sorry Brendon is in Vegas for his nephew's baptism. After weeks in their house, Ryan has decided he's _officially_ too old to sleep on an air mattress.

And, of course, by the time the hangover is wearing off the next morning, the moving truck is pulling up outside the house, and nobody has any excuse to avoid helping. Sometimes Ryan is an evil genius, bwahaha, etc. He smirks and shoves a box from Ikea at Shane. Spencer frowns at him and then, with a sigh, points toward the first guest bedroom. Shane smiles and goes.

Spencer rolls his eyes at Ryan. "Your plans for world domination are coming along nicely. I am having them put all the movies and shit in the living room for now, okay? We can sort out what goes in the bedroom later."

If it was anybody else, even any other time, Ryan would have made a joke about _who_ should go in his bedroom, but Spencer and bedrooms still feel like a raw wound, so he just nods. "What can I do?"

"Go make sure the moving men are following my diagrams?" Spencer pleads, eying the stairs wistfully. The moving men banished him from the first floor because he was hovering.

Ryan grins and goes. The rooms downstairs are filled with deep voices, rumbling along the bare hallways, and stacks of boxes, random furniture strewn across the floors. The moving men are huddled around a piece of paper in the family room, pointing to where Spencer wants the love seat and where the TV will go. In the kitchen, Ryan can hear Zack's familiar sharp tones as somebody rips open boxes. Eric's pulling at boxes, trying to find the vacuum cleaner before his furniture comes into the house. Ryan can imagine what it will look like later, see Keltie primping in the mirror they'll hang in the hall and Brendon sprawled in front of the fireplace with a guitar.

It's a good house. It will be a good life.  
~*~*~*~  
It's the kind of homecoming he pictured from the day he decided to move.

It was later that evening that the front door slammed. Ryan smiled as Hobo scrambled up from the carpet at his feet, yipping like it was going out of style. He heard Keltie laugh and speak to her, soft and sweet. They came back in together, Hobo in her mommy's arms. It was a good picture, the lamplight warm on her skin, the grin on her face, her hand softly scratching Hobo's ear.

"You look happy," he said, reaching out a hand to her. She smiled and curled up beside him, laying her head on his shoulder.

"Yeah? I have some news."

"Really? Me too."

"Do you want to go first?"

Ryan shook his head. "You go. Anything that's making you smile so wide has to be awesome."

She beamed up at him. "I got the part."

"Of course you did, you're awesome!" He kissed her. "Um, what part?"

She laughed and shoved at his shoulder. "_Peep Show_. In Vegas. I'll be here for the whole run, we start rehearsals in March. I'm going to be a pig."

Ryan raised an eyebrow, about to start in on that, when the first part of what she'd said sank in. "You'll be _here_? Really?"

"Isn't it amazing?" she asked contentedly. "We'll really be together."

"Um, well..."

She stilled for a moment, then sat up to look him in the eye properly. "What?"

"That's my news," he admitted. "I'm moving."

"_What?_"

"I'm going to L.A."

Her mouth was slightly open. "Seriously?"

"I'm so sorry, I really am--I had no idea that you might be coming _here_."

"Why are you _moving_? I saw you this morning, you never said a word."

Ryan sighed. "Shane and Brendon are already out there, and Spencer told me today he's going too. It just makes sense."

Her lips thinned a little, but she nodded. "It's the band."

"Yeah." He reached out tentatively, took her hand. "If Spencer's going, I _have_ to go, you know? We need to be near each other. And we'd be out there anyway, to record the new album. It just makes sense."

Keltie sighed and laid her head back down on his shoulder. "I get it. It just sucks, you know? The timing and all. I can finally be here, and you're off somewhere else."

Ryan pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "We knew it was gonna be like this. We've talked about it."

"Yeah." She snuggled closer, her voice rough under the bravado. "I know. And I do it to you, too. It's just--"

"I know." He wrapped an arm around her, held her tight against him. "I'm sorry."

He still is sorry. He's worked so hard to be in love with her; he doesn't want her to be sad.  
~*~*~*~  
Ryan's contemplating a box of dishes when Brendon gets to the house in a whirl of temper. He's been eating out of takeout containers and off paper towels for the last week and a half, but Spencer is going to kill him if there's nothing to eat off of when he comes to spend time with Keltie. She's coming for Valentine's tomorrow, and staying the weekend, and Spencer's coming to cook on Sunday. Keltie herself won't care — never does, it's one of the reasons Ryan loves her — but Spencer will want — always wants — Ryan to offer Keltie his best. He's sort of dubious about his ability to organize the kitchen in a Spencer-pleasing manner, but perhaps it will be worse for Spencer to have to search for the dishes in _the most stupid place ever, Ryan, why would they go there?_ than for the dishes to be immediately available, but in a cardboard box. Then again, maybe not.

"Ryan!" Brendon's voice rings out, strident in the quiet of the house.

"In the kitchen!" he shouts back, and sighs as he kneels and tears the tape off the box. Better to be unpacked and disorganized than organized but with bare cupboards.

Brendon's slightly flushed, eyes sparking, but he leans back against the door frame, elaborately casual. "You want to explain something?"

"Hello to you, too," Ryan says crossly. The dishes are taped together. He has no idea why.

"Yeah, hi, is there a reason you told the internet Shane and I had moved to California?"

"What?"

"You. Blog. My house. My dogs. Apparently it took the fangirls about three point eight seconds to do some basic stalking and put the rest of it together."

Ryan looks up from the contents of the box, startled and half-guilty. "Really?" That's...kind of freaky, actually.

Brendon growls, low in his throat. "Yes, _really._ And telling the world that we're sleeping with Spencer was a really nice touch, by the way."

"Oh, you _must_ be joking," Ryan snaps. "Nobody could possibly guess that was what I meant."

"According to Pete, that is the theory currently held by sixty percent of them. The other forty think he's only sleeping with _me._ Dammit, Ryan, you know I hate this stuff getting out."

Ryan bristles, even though he knows he's at fault really. "What, that you find my best friend sexy? That you're practically married to him and Shane? It's really kind of sick you're ashamed of them, you know. I--_nobody_ decent would treat hi--them like that."

Brendon flinches. "I'm not ashamed of hi--them, I--it's _not like that_!"

"Oh, grow up, Brendon. You're not a teenager anymore. They care about you more than anything. You live together. You have sex. What more proof do you need?"

"It's--that's stupid." Brendon's gone white. "It's--we're--it's just _sex_, Ryan."

"Right." Ryan says, taking vicious satisfaction in the way Brendon's eyes are widening. "Just sex where they take care of you when you're sad, and you spend eighty percent of your time with them, and you're splitting the bills because you live in the same house. Just sex where you've _moved_ to stay together. Just sex where they choose you over everyone else. Have you even slept with anybody else in the last two months, Brendon? Think about it."

"I--that's not--" Brendon swallows hard.

Ryan laughs, the sound harsh and unhappy. "You haven't, have you?"

Brendon's eyes flash. "That doesn't mean I _can't_, it doesn't mean--"

"But you won't," Ryan says, flatly. "You care about him, too, you know. You love him, and he loves you, and you won't--"

He can't talk anymore, because Brendon's mouth is on his.

He shoves him away. "What the _fuck_\--" but Brendon just comes back at him, crashing to his knees, hands on either side of Ryan's head, holding him in place.

"It's _not like that,_" Brendon growls against his mouth, taking it in another punishing kiss. "I can do whatever I want, and so can he. I can do _this_. He doesn't _care_ if I do. It's _nothing_\--"

Ryan moans against his mouth, blood pressure rising in the face of sharp teeth in his lower lip, a strong, wet tongue forcing its way down his throat. The adrenaline of the argument has him already pumping, ready for action, ready to _fight_. He kisses back, fisting his hands in Brendon's shirt, dragging Brendon to his level.

Brendon pulls him closer, too; he bites Ryan's neck and shoves a knee between Ryan's knees, his thigh rough and solid against Ryan's rapidly-hardening cock. Ryan shoves him onto his back, though, hardly caring whether he manages to catch himself, and throws his body on top of Brendon's. He scrapes his teeth along Brendon's neck and rips at his shirt, pulling the snaps loose with a sound like thick ice cracking underfoot. He bites at Brendon's chest, his nipples and ribs, and stops beneath his navel to take a bit of skin between his teeth and twist. Brendon cries out, and Ryan feels a cruel triumph in the sound, in knowing that Brendon is at his mercy, that he's leaving marks and evidence that Brendon's strayed, that Brendon's not _healed_ any more than Ryan ever has been.

He yanks at Brendon's fly, snarling when opening it doesn't get him any new skin. Brendon writhes and kicks, helping Ryan get his clothes down to his knees. It's an arousing sight, red marks on white flesh on green fabric on black tile, but Ryan doesn't groan and duck to take Brendon's cock in his mouth until he spots a hickey three days old just under Brendon's rib. He knows the other mouth that Brendon has had here; it's almost as though he can taste it on the skin.

It takes a few seconds to remember this, the shape of a dick between his lips; another few to adjust for Brendon, who is shaped differently from the only man Ryan has ever done this for. He still remembers how to suck, though, the pressure and rhythm coming back as easy as pedaling a bike; still remembers where to run his tongue to make Brendon (Spencer) squirm with trying not to hump up into his mouth, with trying not to come. Brendon isn't as good at being polite, but that's okay. Ryan can take it. Ryan is up to _anything_ Brendon wants to throw at him.

Ryan makes merciless use of the little bundle of nerves below the head, of the long fingers he has rubbing up behind Brendon's balls. It hasn't been nearly enough when Brendon's cock starts to spurt inside his mouth: he jerks back and spits on the floor as Brendon's come sprays through the air. It isn't enough, he hasn't taken enough, and he shoves his own pants open and down, yanks at his dick until it, too, is spilling thick and white over Brendon's chest and thighs.

For a moment, they're both still; frozen in the bitter smell, staring at the sticky evidence. Their eyes meet for a brief moment, and then Brendon scrambles to his feet.

"So, yeah," Brendon says, half-hysterical. "I'm just gonna--go."

He snatches the roll of paper towels off the counter on his way out the door.

Ryan sits back on his heels and tries not to have a heart attack.  
~*~*~*~  
END PART ONE


	2. Part Two: Shane

**PART TWO: SHANE**  
~*~*~*~  
For Shane, Valentine's Day begins with a draft of cold air washing over his left side and the rasp of calloused heels along the sheets.

He smiles drowsily, still half asleep. "Hey, B."

"Hey." Brendon curls up against him, pressing a smile to Shane's shoulder and sliding cold feet between Shane's legs. Shane drops a kiss to thick, greasy hair and draws an idle fingernail down Brendon's back, reveling in the small shiver he gets in response.

Brendon doesn't always come to Shane after a night out: sometimes he goes to his own room, and sometimes he simply catapults from strange pillows into his day. Shane's given up trying to find patterns, excuses, reasons; he just accepts the cuddles when they come. Brendon is an expert snuggler. There's no better way to start the morning.

"Got any plans today?" he asks, softly, trying not to wake Spencer, who is softly rumbling on the far side of the bed.

Brendon shakes his head, tracing lazy shapes on Shane's stomach--treble clef, eighth note, four/four time. "You?"

Not really, just filing the paperwork for the film and, "I guess I'd better drop something by Regan's. I thought maybe that thing with the sapphire pendant, what do you think?"

Brendon hums against his throat. "You might do better with a pearl; didn't you give her pearl earrings for Christmas?"

Shane sort of thought giving different presents was the point, but he nods, willing to bow before Brendon's superior knowledge when it comes to jewelry. He's always right. Shane suspects he spent too much time on a bus with the Lucent Dossier women at an impressionable age.

"You're not taking her out?" Brendon asks, sixteenth note, flat, fermata.

Shane shakes his head. "She has to work," he explains, wishing he could ask Brendon to hang out tonight. He usually does, when Regan's busy and often even when she isn't, but he doesn't dare ask for tonight.

Brendon hums again, this time the higher hum that means he isn't really listening, and tilts his head to take Shane's earlobe between his teeth.

Shane sucks in a breath, and he can feel Brendon smile around his mouthful of flesh. The idle hand on his stomach smooths up his chest to pluck at a nipple, then slides across to trace around the other one, around and around and around. Shane lies still, not quite sure how to respond. This is new. Brendon's never come home and wanted another round before.

Brendon lets his ear go with a final sharp nip and slides a leg over both of Shane's, rubbing his thigh across Shane's hipbone as he settles on Shane's chest and lazily takes Shane's mouth. He tastes of blue toothpaste and cigarettes, and his tongue is like soft sandpaper against the roof of Shane's mouth.

Shane sighs into the kiss and drops one hand to cup Brendon's ass, using it to shift him just a little to the right, lining up against Shane's slow-wakening cock. Brendon wiggles a little, and Shane's dick jumps in response; Brendon grins into the kiss and moves again, firm and warm along the top of Shane's cock. He coaxes them both hard that way, coarse hair scratching over Shane's stomach and ribs bumping over Shane's chest.

Shane rocks back against him, and the air fills slowly with a pleasant salty scent of sex and sweat. Shane snakes a hand up between them, scratching over Brendon's chest, and Brendon hisses and jerks, his ass clenching around the curve of Shane's cock. It's Shane's turn to grin wickedly now, and he ducks out of the kiss, tilting Brendon's chin up with his nose and nibbling along the jawline.

Brendon's rubbing speeds up, pushing harder into each stroke in time with the way his jaw pushes into each rough swipe of Shane's tongue. He makes one of his urgent little noises, deep in his chest, and reaches down to take his cock in hand, but Shane beats him to it, pulling steadily. Shane can feel his own breathing speeding up. He twists his wrist, despite the bad angle; it's worth the ache later to feel Brendon's eager sounds vibrate against his chest.

Suddenly, Brendon arches away from Shane's mouth, the skin of his neck oversensitized, and Shane feels the shock of orgasm everywhere they're touching, Brendon's palms on his chest, his fingers around Brendon's cock, Brendon's toes against his calf, and his dick spurting warm release against Brendon's ass. Brendon bucks against Shane's clutching hand, and his come goes everywhere, Shane's chest and his own, hands and stomachs and sheets.

For a moment, they're frozen like that, Brendon's head thrown back and his eyes squeezed shut like a child trying not to peek, Shane looking up at him, dazed, trembling a little.

Only a moment, then Brendon's collapsing boneless onto Shane's chest, moaning softly into his skin. Shane flops a hand feebly, and Brendon laughs.

"Took it out of you, old man?"

"Shut up," Shane says, aware that it's a weak response.

Brendon darts a quick kitten-lick at Shane's collarbone and sits up, clambering gracelessly off Shane's hips. He stands up and stretches, arching his back and thrusting his stomach with its circle of teethmarks into Shane's face.

Shane bats at Brendon's dick, careful not to show his urge to cover the marks with his own. "Go clean up, you're gross."

Brendon drops his arms and grins. "You love it," he says airily, but he goes.  
~*~*~*~  
Shane remembers how surprised he was at Brendon, live and in person.

He'd done the research before the job, of course, spent two days on the internet looking at photos and watching interviews, finding a few different angles that might be worth exploring.

He aimed himself at Ross when he arrived, because filming interviews teaches you how to watch them, and shook hands, firm but not testing, equal, adult. Ross didn't do anything as obvious as relax, but it was possible his shoulders had eased a fraction. Shane counted it a success when Smith offered his own hand and smiled--not a real Spencer smile, he knows now, but real as they get for strangers.

"Brendon'll be back in a minute," Smith said, and introduced Walker, Hall "who keeps us in line" and the session musicians on cello and keyboard. Shane had been fussing with tripods and camera cases, answering Walker's casual questions, when he looked up and the whole room brightened and stood still.

There was a young man in the doorway, and none of the pictures, none of the long rambly interviews about synthesizers and Wentz, could possibly have prepared Shane for the reality that was Brendon Urie, breathing larger than life only a few feet away.

His voice was surprisingly soft and deep, and rumbled along Shane's nerve endings as he introduced himself with a, "Hi, I'm Brendon." He offered a hand, and Shane took it automatically.

"Shane Valdes."

Shane did his research. He knew the bassist was new, and that the split with the old one had been raw, rough. He knew they were fighting to be different, to stand out. He knew the guitarist, the lyricist, was out to prove something. Any of that could be interesting.

Somehow, at home in his office with the lights low and the film playing on the computer screen, he wasn't at all surprised to see that mostly he'd shot the lead singer, singing pretty and flirting with the camera.  
~*~*~*~  
Shane shakes his head at Brendon's bare, retreating ass. He arches his arms up over his head and stretches, getting the kinks out before all the post-sex relaxation wears off. His hand hits something warm and solid on the way down.

Spencer's smiling at him. "I see you had a good morning."

He grins back. "A very good morning indeed. Did you enjoy the show?"

"I was keeping my eyes closed for verisimilitude," Spencer says gravely. "But it was good listening."

Shane raises his eyebrows. "Want a hand with that?"

"Nah." Spencer waves a negligent hand. "I've got it. Brendon seemed to be enjoying himself."

"He always does." Shane lets his eyes slide from Spencer's penetrating gaze to the alarm clock on the other side of the bed. "I should get up. What are you doing today?"

"Eh." Spencer shrugs. "We're out of milk again. And these sheets are kind of filthy."

"_Spencer_. We didn't ask you to stay with us so you could run the house. You're already--"

"Shut up." Spencer slaps a hand over his mouth. "Not while he's in the house, he has the ears of a bat. And I don't mind, seriously. Nobody wants to _work_, I'm _bored_. The rest of the film stuff is all you, and there's nothing else to do. Keltie's flying in at noon, so I can't even go over and make Ryan actually put up all the curtains he keeps buying. Let me buy milk. Especially since I think Brendon's going to put orange juice on his Frosted Flakes again; you _know_ that freaks me out."

Shane rolls his eyes. "Fine. Deal. But seriously, don't feel like you have to."

"I'll make Brendon do the sheets," Spencer offers.

"A gentleman's agreement!"

"Huzzah!"

They really shouldn't be letting Brendon addict them to _How I Met Your Mother._  
~*~*~*~  
Shane still doesn't know why Spencer kissed him, that first time.

Ryan had been in New York with Keltie, and Brendon had a date at their place, so they'd been stretched over the furniture at Spencer's house, drifting lazily on the edges of a high, idling away an _I Dream of Jeannie_ Nick at Nite marathon. Spencer had become fascinated with the gender stereotypes. Spencer got into the _weirdest_ shit when he was high.

"But, like," his hand flopped, "she always does what he tells her not to do, right? Like, rebellion is inherent in womanhood. But then it's always wrong, she always screws it up, so when women do what they want instead of what they're told, it's bad."

"She saves it in the end, though," Shane objected.

"Usually when he tells her what to do!" Spencer said, flailing in defense of his point. "And anyway, by 'fixing it' you mean he gets what he wants. She hardly ever gets what she wants unless she's manipulating him or crying and shit."

Shane frowned. "She never wants anything but stupid girly shit. Anniversaries and introducing him to her family and getting married. Why should she get what she wants?"

"What he wants is somebody to love him and take care of him, but never to tell anybody about her or give her what she needs from him. You don't think she deserves to be loved and acknowledged?" Spencer rolled his eyes.

"She shouldn't be trying to force him, though," Shane argued, sitting up and leaning over the arm of his chair into Spencer's space, almost falling over with the headrush. "It isn't real if she's, like, blackmailing him into it. She has to let _him_ come to--"

Spencer kissed him then. Shane kissed back, though he doesn't really know the "why" of that, either; kissed harshly, at first, biting at Spencer's lips and pushing into his mouth. Spencer let him for a minute, took the punishment, moved with it until somehow he'd persuaded Shane's mouth to soften. The nips he gave back were playful, and after a bit he grinned against Shane's lips.

"Hey." He walked his fingers up Shane's arm. "You wanna fool around?"

Shane snorted, and the lingering tension dissipated. "High school style, Smith? Thought you'd grown up."

Spencer put on an over-the-top leer. "Oh, I promise you, Valdes, what I have in mind is rated for _adults._"

Shane rolled his eyes and leaned in to kiss him again, nearly toppling into Spencer's lap. Spencer caught his shoulders and pushed up to meet him, warm and solid to lean against.

By the time Spencer had thrown him on the bed and started licking him open, stopping every few minutes to mock him, something like, "I know you can beg prettier than that, c'mon, you want this," Shane was torn between wanting to kick him in the head and wanting to hold him in place with a knee, even though Shane had never been that flexible.

He started taunting Spencer back, talking about his hot, tight ass, how good it was going to feel to get inside it, until Spencer quirked an eyebrow and he lost it, snorting with laughter in the middle of something about wanting Spencer's hard dick.

Spencer cracked up, too, bending down to nip at Shane's collarbone before stretching over to the nightstand for supplies. "How many, fucker?"

"Dude, I'm the fuckee," Shane said, still laughing a little. "Two, please."

Spencer blew a raspberry against Shane's nipple and split him open, clever fingers moving just right. Shane let out a contented moan that ended in a squeak. He pushed into it with every muscle, shifting with every stroke, and it wasn't long before Spencer gently slapped his flank and moved into position.

They moved together, slow but purposeful, nowhere to hurry to. Shane closed his eyes and hummed, contentedly. He arched into every push, luxuriating in the warmth above him, the hard length inside him, the rough rub of Spencer's belly hair against the tip of his cock. Spencer fucked like he drummed when he knew a song by heart, with competence and rhythm and affection in every thrust, and Shane didn't want to do anything but lie there and climb toward orgasm.

Shane and Spencer's first night together was like any of the fifteen or so to come after it, spread out over a couple of years, and sometimes Shane still thinks of that easy sweat with a certain wistfulness. He knows, really, that he wouldn't give up having Brendon, even only parts of Brendon, for all the anesthesia in the world. He wouldn't give up the nights that Brendon comes to him for passion or aggression or comfort, as well as play, just to avoid the rip of having Brendon roll out of bed without another thought. It's just...sometimes it's nice to think that it's possible to just laugh and fuck and lie tired together in the aftermath talking about nothing. That it's possible for _him_, even though he can't do it for Brendon, the one thing Brendon wants from him, that casual thing.  
~*~*~*~  
Shane gets back from his errands to the smell of the sea mixed with cheap tacos and something mellow on the in-house sound system. He drops down and pats three furry heads, scratches ears, rubs noses. Spencer's on the couch, flipping through something that looks like a contract.

Shane goes over and pushes him in the head. "Dude, you're supposed to be on a _break_. Why are you working?"

Spencer bats at him without looking up. "It's just something for the Cab, the label's making noises about a headliner."

"Yeah?" Ian's gonna _die_. Shane should call him and let him gloat. "You tell them yet?"

"It's just noises--this is some of the financial stuff, some of it's gonna depend on how this tour goes, and I hate to get their hopes up."

Shane nods. "But it's possible."

Spencer actually stops and looks up at him, grinning. "It's totally possible. Our little babies, all grown up and headlining their very own _tour_!"

Shane will _never_ understand the structure of the Decaydance "family." Some days he isn't even sure he wants to. For one thing, it makes sleeping with Spencer feel weirdly incestuous. He shakes his head instead.

"Brendon's been surfing?"

Spencer rolls his eyes. "You can smell the seawater from here, huh? That beach bag is going to mildew one of these days."

"It was the Taco Bell that was the big clue." Shane smiles. "Any left for me?"

"There's something disgusting and greasy in the bag on the counter; I'll fight you for it."

"Oh, it is _on_, bitch."

Both of them bolt for the kitchen, but the three seconds it takes Spencer to get up off the couch are just enough edge that there's no official battle. Shane bites into the burrito with pornographic moans that are only a _little_ exaggerated; damn, but he's hungry.

Spencer sticks out his tongue and goes to the refrigerator, wagging a beer inquiringly. Shane nods and takes another bite.

"Brendon's in the shower," Spencer tells him, twisting the top off his own drink. "He said something about going out tonight." He raises an eyebrow interrogatively.

Shane shakes his head sharply. "It's Valentine's, Spencer, don't. He was kind of weird this morning, anyway. I don't want to push it."

"You _have_ to push, Shane, he's never gonna--"

"--forgive you?" Brendon is standing in the doorway in nothing but a towel, still dripping and red from the heat of the shower. "That was _my_ burrito."

"Dude, you left it on the counter," Shane protests, trying not to flinch. "Free game."

Normally, this is the point at which Brendon would come over and lick the burrito, accidentally-on-purpose getting his tongue on some of Shane's skin, too. This should be followed by an overenthusiastic battle which ends in somebody crying uncle and the gracious winner allowing the loser to trade bites. It's a system.

Today, though, Brendon just shrugs. "Yeah, okay."

Shane very carefully does not cringe at the implications as to just what Brendon overheard. "You going out tonight?"

"Single man on the town," Brendon affirms, nodding. "Lots of lonely lovelies needing a little Brendon in their lives." He puts his hands on hips and thrusts them forward like a belly dancer, and Spencer sucks in a sharp breath.

"Have fun," he says, casual, trying to ignore Spencer. "Bring me a matchbook?"

Brendon snorts. "Collecting souvenirs?"

"Nah, I'm just too cheap to pay for 'em."

Brendon nods and heads back up the stairs; after a minute something really eighties starts blasting out of Brendon's stereo, and Shane breathes a sigh of relief.

"Stop _talking_ about it," he hisses, exasperated, and turns to take his burrito up to his room, but Spencer puts a hand on his elbow and drags him onto the back porch.

"Dude, what?"

"Did Brendon tell you anything about where he was last night?"

"...no? I try to discourage him from talking about his conquests."

"Yeah, well, you're gonna want to hear this one," Spencer says, looking grim. "It was Ryan."

Shane drops the burrito. "_Shit_." He drops to his knees, trying to scoop the mass of beans and cheese into the wrapper before the dogs find it and throw up all over the place. "What the hell do you mean, it was Ryan?"

"I _mean_, either Brendon and Ryan fucked last night or they were having some kind of hickey-sucking contest, okay?"

Shane gives up on the clean-up and looks up. "How do you know?"

Spencer sort of...squirms. "I recognized something, okay?"

He waits patiently.

"Ryan likes to bite people's stomachs, all right? He might as well have written I GAVE BRENDON HEAD across his face before he sent him home."

Shane thinks this is a little far-fetched. "Other people like to bite, Spence."

"Not like this," Spencer mutters, red-faced. "It's a thing, with...I'm not going to tell you about it, all right? Just trust me. It's different, it's his signature move. It leaves a different...I can tell, okay?"

Shane climbs to his feet wearily, rewrapping the dirty burrito in its tinfoil for the garbage. "I thought Ryan was straight," he protests.

Spencer rubs a hand over his face, suddenly ten years older and very, very sad. "Yeah, so did I."  
~*~*~*~  
What Shane knew about Spencer and Ryan's relationship could fill a small but interesting book.

Spencer didn't talk about it. At all, really, or ever, which was weird, because on the whole Spencer was pretty open about sex. He liked boys and girls, enjoyed taking control but didn't mind lying back to let someone else do the work, preferred blowing to being blown, and didn't like having his hair pulled. Which, okay, those last two were maybe because Shane had experience experimenting with Spencer's preferences, but before and after those experiments, Spencer had never minded talking.

He didn't talk about Ryan, though.

Ask him no questions, he told you no lies, but no guarantees if you broke your part of the bargain first.

It was Ryan who told him Lisa Goldsmith hadn't been Spencer's first, let it slip casual as cash for the tip, that he and Spencer had tried it out. That Lisa had been impressed Spencer knew so much about what he was doing.

It was the only verbal confirmation Shane had ever heard of what was — had been? — between them. The rest of the blanks were filled in with secret, sideways looks; silences that went on too long; unexpectedly intimate touches. Shane always missed them in the heat of the moment, laughing, talking, watching the angles; it was only later, viewing and re-viewing his tapes, picking out the best moments to reveal without exposing, that he saw them.

Spencer wasn't friends with Keltie, but he was sunnily, sincerely happy in a room with her and Ryan. Ryan watched Spencer's every touch with jealous eyes — not the touches between Spencer and the people he kissed, but the touches between Spencer and Jon, Spencer and Brendon, Spencer and Zack, Spencer and Shane. Both of them did a lot of reaching out to just half an inch short of touch.

Shane darkly suspected that Ryan had a neck thing, based solely on the way Spencer would wrap a hand around Ryan's shoulder but always left his thumb hovering in the air.  
~*~*~*~  
Upstairs, the music changes abruptly to Brendon's "psyching up" music, blasting out the window. Spencer lets out a sharp bark of laughter and pivots on his heel, headed for his beer. Shane follows him in and drops the mass of melted almost-cheese and beans into the trash, wrinkling his nose at the streaks of black left on his hands, wiping them on his jeans.

"On top of that," Spencer says, like his eyes aren't guarding something fierce, something terribly private, "I _told_ him. His first morning in L.A., you remember, he made me go to breakfast? He wanted to know what was going on, and I _told_ him — what the _fuck_\--"

Shane frowns. "He _knew_? And he still — " Wow. Not that Shane is entirely buying it was Ryan, but what the _fuck_, seriously. He thought Ryan was his _friend_.

The music is cut off, and Brendon comes down the stairs, calling, "You seen my shoes?"

"Which shoes?" Shane bitches automatically, still processing. "And why do you think I'll be able to identify the Nike versus the Armani, anyway?" Shane has four pairs, thank you very much: sneakers, flip-flops, brown dress, black dress. He only has two pairs of dress because Regan has opinions on belts and shoes matching, and Brendon believes that a house with one more pair of shoes is better than a house with one _less_ pair of shoes.

"The brown leather Berluti," Brendon says, laughter in his voice. "And I wasn't asking _you_, I was asking the _cultured_ person in the house."

"They're in the living room," Spencer says, brow furrowed like it only ever is when the people around him are being unforgivably stupid.

Brendon stops in the doorway and spins, arms out like Fred Astaire or somebody. "What do you think, gentlemen?" he asks, looking up at Shane through his eyelashes. He puts one hand on his hip, strikes a diva pose. "Nobody should go unlaid on Valentine's Day--think I can score like this?"

"Not in your stocking feet," Spencer says, with uncharacteristic sharpness. "Go put your shoes on."

"…sure."

Brendon goes to follow orders, and Shane cocks an eyebrow at Spencer.

"I'm going to text Ryan," Spencer says, avoiding Shane's eyes. "Find out why the hell he did it, when he _knew_ what we're doing."  
~*~*~*~  
The plan started just after Christmas, when Spencer came out to help them unpack and they wound up at a club.

"So the problem, as I see it," Spencer said, "is that Brendon is an idiot." He drained the last of his whiskey and dropped the glass to the table, spinning it idly between his fingertips in time to the music blaring around them. It was a compromise club, loud enough to attract Brendon's crowd but well-lit enough for a normal conversation; Spencer and Shane were splitting an onion bloom and nursing their drinks while Brendon flirted at the bar.

Shane raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, and?"

"_And_," Spencer said, waving one arm expansively, "and so he doesn't know what's good for him."

They both turned to look across the room, where Brendon was doing something ridiculous involving his tongue and a jar of maraschino cherries while a small crowd of skimpily-dressed girls who were almost certainly there under fake IDs giggled and brushed their fingers along his arms.

Shane looked back at Spencer. "And?"

"And what if--" Spencer stopped to break off another bit of onion. "What if we could get him to do what's good for him without knowing about it?"

Shane blinked. "Beg pardon?"

"Just listen for a second," Spencer insisted, breaking the onion bit apart and picking apart the layers. "It's the words he's scared of, right? Commitment, for example. Relationship. Boyfriend. In love."

Shane nodded. Fair enough.

"He sleeps with you," Spencer continued. "He lives in your house, and you share a dog and fight over the dishes and make out during chick flicks. And none of this bothers him."

"Ye-eeah..." Shane agreed. "All very true."

"And the issue isn't caring about you, because that time you had your surgery he camped out in the hospital for three days and almost wound up hospitalized himself, and that didn't bother him. It isn't the sex, and it isn't the love, and it isn't the commitment _itself_: it's the _words_."

"And," Shane felt obliged to point out, "all that sex he wants to have with other people."

Spencer made a face at him and popped an onion layer in his mouth. "You don't care about that."

"Well, no." Shane broke off a bit of onion for himself. "I mean, I'd like it if he stopped making himself miserable hooking up with drunk girls who mock him on the internet two days later and weirdass proto-punks who want him to tear their piercings out with his teeth--"

Spencer coughed; Shane rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that happened, I'll tell you the story later."

"Please don't." Spencer reached for his water and took a long gulp, making reproachful eyes at Shane as he swallowed. "The point is, when he's not out hooking up with creeps, you're happy together. He's _happy_ with you. You just have to trick him into not freaking out about it."

"Trick him?"

"You just...keep him at home for a while. Get him used to the whole settling down thing before you throw the scary words into the mix."

"And how exactly do you suggest I keep him at home?" Shane demanded, tilting his head toward the bar, where Brendon was now loudly demanding cherries with stems so that the girls could show him their very skilled tongue skills and slamming another shot of tequila.

"Distract him," Spencer said promptly. "Something different. Creative. Make it so exotic at home he doesn't think about going out and being wild there."

Shane considered, crunching his bit of onion. "The problem there," he said musingly, "is that our everyday sex life is pretty out there."

"I'm not sure I really want to know."

"I mean, we've done the spanking thing, and there've been handcuffs, and he likes--"

"I'm not asking for a list, Shane, jeez. What don't you do? What's, like, unusual? Or is there anything he likes so much he'll stay home for it if you offer?"

"He isn't _stupid_, Spence. He'll spot it if I do a striptease every time he starts pulling his clubbing clothes out of the closet."

Spencer pursed his lips, conceding the point. "There's gotta be _something_ that'll feel interesting and new for a while."

Shane frowned and chewed for a while, idly watching the two girls with the lowest tops compete for Brendon's attention, crowding close to him until he slipped an arm around each of their shoulders. God, he was never getting to sleep tonight, Brendon was fucking loud in a —

"Threesome!" He sat up straight and banged his fist on the table.

Spencer's gaze snapped back from the couple he'd been watching argue three tables over. "A threesome?" he said, frowning a little.

"It's perfect," Shane said, leaning forward earnestly. "It's totally one of those things people think of as kinky that can actually be really normal. So in his _conscious_ mind, he is being all adventurous and shit, and actually he's staying home every weekend."

"With you."

"Yeah."

"You and _who_? Regan?"

"Regan finds the idea of sleeping with Brendon vaguely laughable," Shane pointed out. "It's got something to do with his having a better ass than she does and something more to do with his repertoire of fart jokes."

"He picked up half of them from you," Spencer said dryly.

"But she doesn't know that, because I don't tell them in front of her, because I like sleeping with her."

"Fine, so not Regan. Who, then?"

Shane gave him a meaningful look. Spencer's eyebrows rose.

"You must be kidding."

Shane smirked. "You already know all his fart jokes."

"I do indeed. You _must_ be kidding."

"Oh, come on, Spencer. Even _you_ would be sexy next to my naked body."

Spencer rolled his eyes. "For somebody who's slept with me more than once, you're awfully insulting."

"Baby, it was just that good."

The toe of Spencer's boot met his shin under the table, and Shane laughed. "C'mon, Spencer. Have you got anything better to do?"

"Sadly, no."

"Are you tired of sleeping in a shirt in case Brendon brings drunken groupies back to the bus?"

Spencer heaved a sigh. "Yes."

"Don't you want us to be happy?" Shane tried to keep his tone teasing, but he could hear the faintest echo of his years of wistfulness creeping in on the last word.

Spencer eyed him for a long moment. With a sigh, he reached into his pocket for a mint and slid out of the booth, crunching it noisily as he ran a hand through his hair and stood for just a moment eying Brendon's back, hip cocked.

Ten minutes later, the little crowd of fake tans had scattered, and Spencer was standing on the very, very narrow edge between where Brendon usually let his bandmates stand and Brendon's personal space, one hand on Brendon's waist. He was looking into Brendon's eyes, speaking intently.

Brendon's gaze flickered to Shane, and Shane smiled the way he smiled when he didn't want to change the sheets just yet. He could see Brendon's eyelashes flutter shut for just a moment before he put a deliberate hand below Spencer's collarbone and grinned up at him.

Spencer's other hand flashed a thumbs-up at Shane behind Brendon's back.

Shane crossed his fingers beneath the table, and hoped for the best.  
~*~*~*~  
It's Pete, the internet whore, who first finds out that Keltie saw Spencer's text, that she dumped Ryan and stormed out, that somehow there was a _ring_ involved.

Of course the first thing he does is call Spencer and ask what Ryan needs.

They'd gone to bed Valentine's night with Spencer's questions still unanswered, and woke up just the same. Spencer hasn't gone more than six inches from his phone all day--at the kitchen table, beside him on the couch as the television played to no one, on the sink as he shaved (he's bleeding now, can't seem to leave the scab on his neck alone.) Shane wants to try to get him into the shower, get hot water pouring over the muscles knotting themselves in front of his eyes, but he's afraid Spencer will try to take the phone in there, too, and electrocute himself.

Shane's tried twice to give him space, but the first time was when Spencer cut himself because he wasn't looking at the mirror, and called Shane back to him in the midst of swearing like a sailor; the second time he realized he'd credited the location scouting to "Fucking Ross." After he'd corrected that to "Jim Baker," he gave up, and spent the rest of the day hanging around Spencer. He'd feel creepy, but there are moments when Spencer's eyes flicker to his, and he can tell Spencer's glad to have him there.

Brendon never came home last night. Shane could swear the house is echoing in the ways it doesn't usually.

They wait together like that as broad patches of sun cross the living room floor, pretending to watch _Seinfeld_, although really Shane is watching Spencer and Spencer is watching his phone. The sun's halfway below the horizon, and they are still waiting. Nevertheless, both of them jump when the phone actually _does_ go off, and Spencer leaps at it, only to freeze, staring at the screen. Shane frowns. Spencer looks up at him. "It's Pete."

Shane raises his eyebrows. He doesn't know what Spencer wants to do with that any more than Spencer seems to. Spencer eyes the phone as it throbs again, looking at it the way Shane's seen him look at strange dogs who might lick or might bite. Finally he huffs out a little breath and thumbs the "answer" button, lifting the phone to his ear.

"Yeah?" He frowns, and Shane cringes, waiting for the blow. "What do you mean, what can you--what about Keltie? She _what_?" Shane moves, settling beside Spencer on the sofa, and Spencer's thumb presses the speakerphone button, lets Shane hear too.

"--something about a text message?" the phone squawks. "It must have been this morning, it's on her blog--how do you not know this?" Pete sounds honestly bewildered, but Spencer flinches; Shane would kind of like to punch Pete in the face. "She says she threw a ring in his face, too, Spencer, what _ring_? What the hell is going on?"

Spencer's eyes have gone wide and dark, like Dylan's when she broke her leg. Shane just wants to stop him looking like that, just wants Pete to stop talking, and he blurts, "Ryan slept with Brendon."

There's a long silence. Spencer's skin goes from pale to white to gray, and Shane's getting afraid to touch him. Finally, the phone squawks again.

"Well, shit."  
~*~*~*~  
For all that Shane knows — intellectually — that most couples take the whole faithfulness issue very seriously, the part where Keltie stormed out sort of baffles him. It's just sex, for crying out loud.

Shane and Brendon have their own issues and to spare, but Shane never cares when Brendon swaps spit or come with other people, with two exceptions: he hates it when Brendon sleeps with people to punish himself, and he hates it when Brendon's betrayed by the people he was sleeping with in good faith and astonishing naivete. Beyond Brendon's misery, Shane couldn't care less.

Well, all right. He hates the ones who leave their spiky barrettes sticking out of the couch cushions, but _jeez_ — Shane likes his ass unprobed by rhinestones, despite Brendon's taste in dildos.  
~*~*~*~  
"What the hell are we supposed to do with that?" the phone squawks plaintively.

Spencer's eyes meet Shane's, and the door bursts open, letting a happy shriek of laughter into the house. Both of them turn to face the doorway, where Brendon's clomping in with a small, dark girl riding him piggyback, clutching at his chest as he tries to toss her off. Both of them are giggling like loons.

"Pete?" Shane says, trying for normality and failing just a little bit. "We'll have to call you back."

"Sure, sure," Pete replies hastily, and the line goes dead.

Brendon succeeds in loosening his passenger's hold and she slumps to the ground, straightening up with a last little peal of laughter.

"Dork," she says, and punches Brendon in the shoulder.

Brendon clasps a hand over his arm and makes an exaggerated wounded face, turning to include Shane and Spencer in his performance. "_Mean_\--"he begins, and then stops, eyes narrowing in on Spencer's face.

Shane's eyes flicker back that direction, too. Spencer's skin is still gray, his eyes unfocused and his face frozen.

"Spence?" Brendon says, gentle, soft, like he's trying to coax a frightened cat off a high perch.

Beside him, the girl stills. Then, with astounding tact, she pivots on her heel and walks down the hall with a soft, quick step. After a second, Shane hears the bathroom door click shut.

In a distant sort of way, he's impressed. Brendon doesn't often pick up girls who can even _spell_ discretion.

"Spencer?" Brendon says again, taking one step forward, and then another.

Shane lays a hand on Spencer's shoulder, and Spencer twitches, turning his head and almost looking Shane in the eye.

Shane frowns at him, shaking his shoulder a little. "You okay?"

Spencer frowns back at him. "I — "

Brendon's hand lands on top of Shane's, still on the shoulder, and Spencer freezes again, like he's only just realizing Brendon's here at all. He stands up abruptly, leaving their stacked hands to fall to the sofa. "I'm gonna take a shower," he announces. "You should — do whatever." With a vague handwave, he walks briskly to the stairs.

Brendon's hand tightens on Shane's, and for a moment, they merely look at each other, communicating with eyebrow twitches and twists of the mouth. _Should we? Sometimes he — _

_But this is a bad one — _

_Yeah, I guess. What — _

_I don't know, but I don't think right now is — _

_Yeah, no, you're right, you're right. Let him think._

Shane shrugs his assent and squeezes Brendon back, reassuring, before sliding his hand free and standing up. "Pizza?"

"Sure."

Brendon precedes him to the kitchen, shoulders still a little uneven, uneasy with leaving Spencer to handle whatever made him look like that all on his own. Shane quicksteps for a second to catch him up and wrap an arm around his waist, pull him in and press a rough kiss to his temple. "He's different, B," he reminds, softly. "We can help later."

Brendon surprises him by turning for a bear hug, clinging, fingers sunk deep into Shane's hair and the other arm hard and uncomfortable around his back. Shane bends his head and presses their cheeks together, breathing for both of them. Brendon hates it when the rocks in his life shift or crumble, and in a lot of ways Spencer's the worst for him, because he wants none of the things Brendon needs when he's hurting; not cuddles or distraction or eighties cartoons or rough sex, any of which Brendon could give him gladly.

Spencer won't need Shane until later, either, and Shane takes another deep breath through his nose and holds it down, deep in his diaphragm, focusing on the pain of too much air below his ribs and the warm, sweaty smell behind Brendon's ear. He lets the air out through his mouth and feels the warmth of Brendon copying him automatically, steady, grounded, grounding. Brendon strokes a thumb along Shane's waist, and Shane takes an easier breath in through the nose again.

Upstairs, the shower kicks on.

Out through the mouth.

In through the no —

"Ah…"

It's so quiet he almost misses it, but he turns to see the dark pixie girl from earlier hovering in the hallway. Brendon turns, too, and he smiles his reporter smile. "Sarah!" he says, not letting go of Shane, but loosening his grip a little. "Sorry about that."

Shane can almost _see_ her deciding it would be ruder to ask questions than to ignore Spencer's obvious distress. Instead, she says easily, "No problem." She's still poised on one foot, head cocked uncertainly. He pinches Brendon sharply, and Brendon jumps.

"Right. Sarah, this is my roommate Shane," he says, like he's introducing them at a family barbecue, potato salad in one hand, instead of cuddled up against said roommate's chest. "Shane, Sarah."

She smiles with just a wry hint of irony. "Hi, Shane."

"Hi, Sarah," he says, and takes a little step back from Brendon, dropping his arms. He could maybe like this one. "We were just going to order pizza."

"No pineapple," she says immediately. "Anything but pineapple."

He grins at her. "A woman after my own heart, I see."

Brendon moans like he's being denied sex. "Cruel world!" he declaims, one dramatic hand clutched in his own hair. "They're all against me!"

"Absolutely," Shane says, and gestures Sarah into the kitchen with a little bow.  
~*~*~*~  
The day normal changed, Shane woke up alone.

Par for the course, really, on weekdays, because Regs worked in an _office_, and his place was nowhere near it, but he also woke up _naked_ and a little sticky, with random elbow-shaped bruises in odd places.

He knew how every last sore spot had landed on his skin.

All things considered, waking up alone was probably still par for the course.

He groaned mentally and rolled out of bed, grabbing a pair of Brendon's pants — not the ones from the night before — to hitch over his ass. He was going to be naked enough for this conversation.

It wasn't exactly that they hadn't _talked_ the night before--_dude, we're not exclusive, you've seen her kiss Josh, right?_\--but they hadn't talked about —

They had talked about the _act_, not the _after_.

Brendon was hiding in a cocoon of _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles_, curled defensively in one corner of the couch. He'd wrapped his knees in the rough green afghan his aunt had knitted for him for Christmas a year back.

Shane reached over and ruffled his hair on the way past, casual, rough, not at all like smoothing his thumbs over Brendon's temples, nothing close to pulling Brendon's red, wet mouth nearer to the base of his dick. He went and poured a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles and slumped sideways on the couch, his head knocking against Brendon's shoulder and staying there.

Raph did something badass with his sai and Shane grunted approval, crunching another spoonful of Pebbles.

The Turtles had defeated the aliens and were halfway to another encounter with Shredder before Brendon's feet were all the way on the floor, but they made it there.

Shredder was escaping and vowing his revenge as Shane chased the last few cereal specks around the bottom of the bowl. Brendon, sitting almost normally now, reached over and stole it, with a hand that only shook a little, and drank the weakly-chocolate milk down.

There was a disgusting slurping noise as he lowered the bowl, and Shane made a face at him. Brendon made one back. Shane stuck out his tongue. Brendon turned his eyelids inside out. Shane flinched, because _ew ew ew ew ew_, and Brendon grinned in triumph. Shane smacked him on the back of the head and took the bowl back. He shoved off the couch and headed for the kitchen.

"Shane?" Brendon sounded hesitant.

Shane didn't turn around. "Yeah?"

"I, uh — I was supposed to be taking Julie to lunch — "

"Try that new Thai place," Shane said immediately, flicking on the kitchen sink to help hide the way his voice was unexpectedly, inexplicably shaking. This was the plan.

There was a long pause as the sound of the rushing water filled Shane's eardrums, drowning the little bones that controlled his balance, that stopped the room from spinning around him.

"Sure, yeah," Brendon said, and his voice was weird, but no longer cautious, no longer afraid. Shane let the bowl clatter to the bottom of the sink, twisted the water off, rubbed his hands along the backs of his thighs, still tight and sore from shoving his cock so deep in Brendon's ass he had known he'd never pull free.

"Is Shredder in the next episode?" he called, glancing around in case one of them had actually remembered to do a load of dish towels.

There weren't any crumpled heaps of blue on the countertops. He left the bowl in the sink.  
~*~*~*~  
By any artistic rights, Shane thinks, coming into the kitchen the next morning scratching at his stomach, the light should be cold gray dawn, and the dogs lying quietly at Spencer's feet, with maybe the occasional soft whimper of sympathy.

But because life doesn't let Shane direct it, it's almost noon and the sun is shining bright and hard through the patio doors, recoiling off the countertops; the dogs are yapping as they wrestle in a corner. Spencer's at odds with the rest of it, the warm clear day and the smell of warm poptarts, sitting hunched over the table with terrible hollows under his eyes and half a fake pastry disintegrating in his coffee cup.

Somehow it's even sadder this way. Sometimes Shane thinks he should stick to fucking documentaries and have done, because life pulls the kind of sucker-punches he just doesn't have the imagination for.

He goes to the toasting cupboard ostentatiously and starts rattling through the boxes, announcing his own presence without demanding that Spencer talk. Spencer will talk if he wants to, and if he doesn't want to it'll be like boxing with King Kong — bloody, and ultimately pointless.

"I got Jon to come take care of Ryan," Spencer says, behind him, and the chair scrapes as he gets up. Shane turns and watches him walk over to the sink, pour out the cold coffee all clotted and gross with marshmallowy graham cracker crumbs. How Spencer can _eat_ that stuff — wait.

"Jon?" he says, trying hard for casual, as casual as Spencer is trying to be. _Shit_. This is a way bigger shitfest than just Keltie dumping Ryan, then, although _that_ would be bad enough. "When's he coming?"

"Hopping the next flight, I think." Spencer rinses out his mug and fills it up with hot coffee, then sips and makes his burned-tongue face. "He'll forward the flight info, he always does. I — would you mind picking him up?"

_Double_ shit. "'Course, man. Glad to see him."

Spencer nods and reaches over Shane's shoulder for the box of S'more poptarts, ripping open the silver foil with possibly a little bit more force than is totally necessary.

His hands are shaking, just the tiniest bit.

"Spence — " Shane starts, putting a hand on Spencer's wrist. "Are you _sure_ you don't want to — "

Spencer sucks in a sharp breath and wrenches his hands to the side, fumbling for the toaster. "I'm sure he doesn't want _me_ there. I can't--"

The second stair from the bottom creaks, which isn't nearly enough warning. Shane freezes, still uncertain what they're going to tell Brendon about this, and then he turns and curses all over the inside of his head, because really, could there be a _worse_ time for Brendon to be bringing random girls home?

Sarah's wearing a man's button-down — probably Spencer's, maybe Jon's, too long to be Brendon's. "Good morning," she says, brightly, bending down to scratch behind the ears of the skittering dogs.

Shane frantically seeks out Spencer's eyes and tries to communicate with him telepathically. Spencer seems to have picked up on his purpose, but there's something blocking the signal. It may be panic. Both of them mutter something approximating a greeting.

"Good girl, Dylan," she says, giving a final pat and standing up again. "Do you believe in sharing poptarts, Spencer? Or am I on my own in this strange, cruel kitchen?"

And maybe it's the blue of the shirt, like the dress he's pretty sure he remembers her in, or maybe it's the way she's using Spencer's name as though they've been introduced, but Shane suddenly realizes he's seen her before.

"The S'mores are mine and only mine," Spencer says, baring his teeth in a smile that could almost pass for playful. "But the rest of the cupboard is all yours. I think there's a full box of wildberry, even. I'll get you some coffee."

Seen her at Pete's parties, industry parties, hanging off the arms of guys with familiar faces, frontman kinds of faces.

"That would be great, thanks," she says, smiling back, stretching lazily so her breasts bob distractingly inside the shirt.

Shit. Family secrets aaaaalllll over the scene, if past experience is any kind of indication, and the secrets they're spilling right now are particularly volatile. And Brendon doesn't usually pick up career industry girlfriends for playtime; she'll be around for a while. Possibly Shane should have expected this reaction to the conversation Brendon overheard. He never picks innocents when he's making a point.

Shane realizes he's been sort of staring at her, and turns hastily back to the cupboard. "There _are_ wildberries," he says, inanely, pulling them down. "Or we have raspberry, banana split, cherry, cookie dough, blueberry, and if you'll actually eat these milkshake-flavored things I will _pay you_."

"Vanilla or strawberry?"

He turns, and his look of horror is only half-forced. "You _know there are two kinds_?"

She quirks a little half-grin at him. "Says the man with banana split pastries in his cupboard."

"Those are _Brendon's_," he protests.

"--_hey_!" and Brendon's standing in the doorway in his underpants, looking indignant. "You bought them!"

"That is because I know you so _very_ well," Shane says, just the barest hint of acid seeping through his bantering tone. "I notice they disappear pretty fast."

Brendon walks over behind Sarah, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and talking into her hair, bending to kiss the curve of her neck with a loud obnoxious smack. She squirms a little and giggles. "Can I help it if you buy me monkey treats?" he says, taking Sarah's hand and spinning her around.

"Can you help being a monkey?" Spencer sets a full mug on the counter next to Sarah and goes over to push the button on the toaster down.

"Of course not, Spencer Smith," Brendon says indignantly, "and none of you would love me if I were other than myself." He goes for the mug cupboard and takes two down, carrying them over to the refrigerator and bending in for the bottles of syrup. He swirls chocolate into one and drips hazelnut into the other before reaching for the carafe and adding coffee.

Shane accepts the hazelnut mug and leans back against the counter to sip it, watching Brendon jostle Spencer for the creamer. It's always moments like this one that make it impossible to stay mad at Brendon, even in the face of Sarah's curious eyes taking everything in.  
~*~*~*~  
Of course Shane bought the banana split poptarts, even though they take turns doing the grocery shopping, actually. Now that he's here, Spencer goes with either of them, because Spencer occasionally _cooks_, but when it's Shane and Brendon in their own house there's a reasonably strict division of labor.

Shane does the laundry, because Brendon shrinks things and pretends it's on purpose, but Brendon does the dishes because Shane has what Brendon calls "misplaced faith" in the scrubbing power of the dishwasher. Brendon feeds the dogs, but Shane trains them; sweeping and vacuuming on the household chart with the shopping and computer maintenance. Brendon keeps the music and DVDs in order because he's a freak like that.

(If Shane maybe takes the time once a week to untangle the video game cords and wrap them tidily around the controllers, it's nobody's business but his own. Anyway, sometimes he can time it for the same time as Brendon's sorting, and Brendon's ass sticks out and wiggles a lot when he's bending over to rearrange the cases.)

About two-thirds of their sex life isn't fucking, because fucking takes time and Brendon is an impatient little brat, but they switch whose dick is in whose ass on a more or less equal basis. Brendon needs to get out of his head sometimes and Shane is more than happy to give him that, with hard hands or glinting cuffs, but a lot of the time they just roll around, touch and lick and bite until they come.

They fight, sometimes — about feeding the dogs under the table or wet towels on the floor or what movie to watch or just because they haven't spent enough time together or maybe it's too much time crowded close. Sometimes it ends in angry sex or sweet, I'm-sorry sex. Mostly, they hug it out, manly claps to the shoulder and everything.

It's a good life they have, snuggles and mopwater and pigtail-pulling and shared bills; quiet and ordinary, in between the cramped, bizarre world where Brendon is a superstar and Shane is his roots. It's enough, to have that — to love Brendon and live with him and lean on him and be (almost) what he needs.

Most of the time, anyway, it's enough — and all of the time, it's _his_.  
~*~*~*~  
It's four days later when Brendon suggests they go out, the five of them. Spencer bows out — Spencer's _been_ bowing out of everything, ever since the Incident, and Shane doesn't think he's sleeping even though that's his excuse — but they're going to double, Shane and Regan, Brendon and Sarah.

Sarah's been in and out of the house, the occasional breakfast or movie, unpredictable and difficult to avoid. She never seems to be wearing her own clothes. It's putting a strain on all of them.

Bad enough, Jon has been going back and forth between the canyon house and the Valdez-Urie-Smith household, bearing equally bad tidings both ways, as far as Shane can see. Bad enough, Spencer watching infomercials into the wee hours of the morning and spending hours sitting at the window, chewing his lip bloody. Bad enough, the way Brendon went fast-paced and uneasy when he heard Keltie had left Ryan, though he doesn't seem to feel guilty.

All that is bad enough, but doing it for an audience is growing steadily more intolerable. Shane leapt on the idea of going out when Brendon suggested it — just getting out of the house, for the love of God. What Spencer's doing to his drums is about to drive Shane over the cliff, and he only knows the basics.

"Dinner, don't you think?" Regan said musingly into the phone. "I want my chance at the fresh meat. And then we can do something easy after, a play or something. Leah's doing _No, No Nanette_ at some crappy theater or other."

Shane groaned, and made her promise to buy the tickets, and told Brendon, who confirmed with Sarah, and now here they all are, tucked into a booth at a classy little Italian place.

"So you're a nanny?" Regs is asking sweetly, poking at her ravioli with a fork.

"Up the coast aways," Sarah says, nodding. "Two little girls, they're _wonderful_, even when they're being little terrors."

"And you're from Detroit?"

"Mmm-hmmm." Sarah's mouth is still full from her bite of lobster tail diavolo.

"My friend Jeanette's girlfriend is from out that way." Shane ducks his head to study his lasagna, and Regan kicks him. Brendon is doing a very bad job of hiding his smile. "She boats, apparently."

Sarah grins. "She must make more money than my parents do, then. We went on a barge for my ninth birthday party, though."

The conversation is permitted to drift into childhood birthday parties, including Brendon's classic and tragic story about kidnapping the baby deer from the traveling petting zoo.

They move on, to favorite animals, to nieces and nephews, to the play they're going to see and Sarah bonding with Regan over obscure Doris Day movies. It isn't until they're rising from dessert, scraping the last bits of gelato and tiramisu as they stand up, that Regan slips in another little test.

"I haven't seen it yet," she says to Sarah, holding up her hair with one hand and letting Shane slide her jacket over her arm. "I always take Shane for the first time, the friend obligation, you know." She rolls her eyes. "He's had so many years of pretending to like Panic's stuff that he knows how to be polite."

Brendon sticks his tongue out at her, and she winks at him.

"Andrew just completely fails at that kind of thing," Regan goes on, dropping her hair and wrestling into her other sleeve. "I can't take him anywhere — once he told my best friend she should think about playing one of the men's parts. I don't know why I put up with him, honestly — the sex is not that good."

Sarah's eyes widen a trifle, but all she says is, "Andrew's your other boyfriend?"

Regan smiles at her like a cartoon shark. "One of them. The other's still in Vegas, we're seeing if the long-distance thing works out."

"That must be hard." Sarah smiles back sympathetically. "I had to give up my girlfriend in Detroit, in the end. I know people who make it work, though…and if you're poly, you know about keeping it honest. You'll make it if it's meant to be."

The edges of Regan's grin soften to something genuinely pleased. "Yeah, that's what I think. Brendon, honey, go get a cab, will you? We've got the bill."

"Sure," Brendon replies, looking down at Sarah with doubtful surprise written in the lines of his eyebrows. He takes her hand and tugs her toward the entrance of the restaurant.

Regan tugs Shane's wallet out of his pocket and pulls out a few bills, laying them on the table. "I like her," she says, unnecessarily, tucking the wallet back in and standing on her tiptoes to kiss his nose. "Can we keep her around long enough for a girls' night with rum and Doris Day?"

"She's passed the first round with flying colors," Shane agrees, amused. "But it's really up to Brendon."

Regan rolls her eyes. "Like Brendon knows anything about women. We should just handcuff her to him, he'll get the idea." She starts to follow the other two, but Shane puts a hand on her wrist. She turns to look at him, one eyebrow raised.

"Go slow, okay?" he says, quiet and intent. "She's done a lot of dating around the scene, and with Keltie and everything…the last thing we need is — "

"More meat for the ghouls," she finishes for him, nodding. "Yeah, okay. I really do like her, though, Shane."

Shane sighs. "The problem, really," he says, slinging his own jacket over his shoulders and pulling her hand through the crook of his elbow, "is that if it weren't for all the crap going on, so would I."  
~*~*~*~  
There are days Shane feels like Regan met Brendon and just never stopped laughing at him. At Shane, that is, not at Brendon. Not that she doesn't laugh at Brendon when he deserves it, but sometimes she stops for breath.

It was a casual evening in — Jon there, because Ryan's mom was still making awkward advances and Jackie — or Crystal? one of them — was in the school play, Jon and Clara and Adam and somebody Shane can't remember, people from his college crowd, and Regan's friends from wherever she was working then. Brendon and Jon were the last ones out the door, because Brendon challenged Shane at some stupid video game and Shane couldn't let it go until he beat him down. It wasn't long since Shane had first met the band — a couple of weeks, maybe — but they had _clicked_, all of them.

Regan finally declared the competition a tie when she saw Jon's enormous yawn. She kicked them out gracefully, walking them to the door with the "nice to meet you"s and the "we should do this again"s, shut it behind them, turned around, and laughed.

Shane looked up from where he was winding up the game controllers. "What?"

She grinned at him, still chuckling, gleeful. "You are _so smitten_."

He blushed, ducked his head uselessly.

"You want to carry him around in your pocket and take him out for blowjobs, don't you?"

"I — " Shane stopped, closed his mouth, and finally let out a rueful laugh.

"You really, really do," she assured him, and took her shirt off. The aftermath of her gigglefit was still rippling across her boobs. It was distracting. "You want to buy him roses and celebrate your anniversary with candlelight," she continued, walking towards Shane with a deliberate, hip-switching step. "You want to lick his neck, and taste his favorite candy in his mouth, and — " she squealed when Shane pounced, swinging her up over his shoulder.

Shane smacked her ass and she yelped again, trying to twist so she could get her hands down his pants and distract him. "You loooooooove him," she said, still laughing, as Shane carried her into the bedroom and dumped her on the bed. "You want to — " and then she was giggling into his mouth as he nipped at her lips.

Shane had always been poly more in theory than in practice. He didn't mind if Regan wanted another boyfriend, or five of them, or a girlfriend if that was what took her fancy. But he wasn't very good at casual, and he was picky about the people he let see him naked, and so far nobody had come even close to making him light up inside the way she did.

Brendon was the first since Regs, the first to make him feel like he could fall in love, tumble head over heels and skin his knees on the rocks and bump his head on the hillside and have it be worth picking himself up and asking for refuge. There were a hundred reasons why not — Shane's internet stalking had found them all, Brendon's tentative friendship with his family, his bad relationships with girls, the fact that as far as a growing fanbase could determine, he had no intention of trying anything with a guy — but Shane _wanted_, in a way he hadn't since Regan first hipchecked him into a quiet corner and wound her fingers through his beltloops.

It was crazy and reckless and stupid, and he was going to forget about it immediately, starting by shutting Regan up with a mind-altering orgasm that would make her forget how well she knew him.

He got her the orgasm, but he woke up at noon to the apartment smelling of coffee and the cold Chinese takeout she'd left on the counter for him, with a small giftbag beside the carton.

_Ran out for lunch before work_, the note under the mug ran. _Don't forget your jacket at the drycleaners, you'll need it for the interview tomorrow. The present's for you…I think it's time you had your own._

Shane recognized the book from Regan's apartment, where it was battered and dog-eared in at least four places from all the times she had tried to explain how she lived to her friends, but this was a new, crisp copy. _The Ethical Slut_, with a very simple inscription.

_Now that I'm one of two. Love, Regan_  
~*~*~*~  
Zack shows up on Wednesday, Carol-less. He slaps Spencer's back just a little too heartily when they hug hello, though, peers a little too searchingly into Brendon's face.

He's heard something, all right. For all the music business travels from Kentucky to Australia, it is a tiny, incestuous place, and gossip spreads from tech to security to girlfriend to producer, occasionally stopping for a breather on the internet. Shane's sort of dreading learning what made it to Zack's ears.

Zack drops to his knees to make a fuss of the dogs, including Bogart, who he hasn't met yet and who is practically catapulting into the air trying to get attention from the big strange thing in his house, touching his humans. He rubs ears and scratches bellies and commands calm in a voice that's eerily reminiscent of the one Shane's heard at six o'clock in the morning before interviews.

Finally the pups are all piled into his lap or sprawled tummy-up on the floor, and Zack can start catching up. Bogart's almost as cute as you said, Brendon, and how's Regan's new job working out, and what's Haley up to, Spencer, and hey, Bden, I hear you've got a new girl, with the eyes averted and the fingers busy behind Indy's ear.

Shane breathes a sigh of relief. It's just Sarah making the rounds.

Of course, that means it's up to Shane to tattle about all the _other_ crap to Zack — not that he'll do anything, Zack doesn't poke the sticky webs between his artists _ever_, but he should probably _know_\--but at least it means family business is still strictly in the family. For now.

He and Zack both pretend Zack didn't notice the sigh.

"Oh, yeah," Brendon says, "Sarah, she's great." Brendon is smiling his reporter smile. "I think you met her, once?"

"Probably," Zack says, which answers a few more questions. "I want to meet her again, though, big guy, now that she's your special lady." It amazes Shane, how Zack makes that come out not sarcastic at all. Zack says a lot of things not-sarcastically, though, things like, "I will call the lawyers about what to do in case of paternity testing," and "I know about you and white cheddar Cheez-Its so I picked up four boxes yesterday," and "I am willing to smuggle weed past Tibetan security but it means you will have to keep track of your own ear-popping gum because my pockets are already stuffed with Jon's corn pads."

"Sure," Brendon says, still grinning with a manic and completely insincere intensity. "We could all go out to dinner!"

"You guys go on — " Spencer starts, like he has _every fucking time_ since Valentine's, but Zack interrupts him.

"Nah." Zack pushes himself to his feet, carelessly. "Got plans already. Besides, this is my first time visiting you in L.A. Are you trying to tell me we're _not_ going to Disneyland? You too cool for Donald Duck now?"

Oh, brilliant. _Brilliant_. Shane could kiss him. (Except not, because Shane likes occasionally being considered one of the grown-ups.) How is it possible Shane didn't think of that?

Brendon brightens, straightening his shoulders from the creepily-intense leaning thing he does as part of the reporter smile. "Yeah, man, _totally_. I will whup your ass at Buzz Lightyear and don't you think I won't."

"Yeah, we'll see," Zack says, punching him lightly in the arm. "Go call your girl, okay? Tell her we're going tomorrow and I could own a shotgun if I wanted to." Brendon rolls his eyes and leaves the room.

"Yeah, I think I'll pass," Spencer says, trying to raise a sardonic eyebrow, and Zack punches him too.

"Dream _on_, fuckface, I will double your score with one hand behind my back. If you even _try_ to chicken out and deny me my right to gloat I will tell Ryan about this designer Carol knows who's really into modernizing Georgian fashions."

For a second Spencer looks like he's been hit in the gut, but he musters up a sickly smile. "God, anything but that. Fine, fine, I'll go — and I'll kick _your_ ass, just for that."

"Your pathetic and futile dreams amuse me, child," Zack says. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"I'll walk you out," Shane offers quickly.

He very decently waits until they're out on the porch, door shut behind them, before reaching up to give Zack the fiercest hug of his life. "_Yes_," he says. "I cannot _believe_ I didn't think of that. Why didn't I think of that?"

It's a _classic_, the dork-out. No girl dating Brendon Urie for his rockstar glory ever sticks around after watching more than fifteen minutes of a Disney movie with him (mouthing the lines, singing along at the top of his voice). Even a really _hardcore_ scene girlfriend isn't going to last a whole _day_ at the happiest place on the earth. Shane can have his house back.

"Because I am a genius," Zack says loftily. "You're my dinner plans, by the way. Tell me what they've gotten themselves into _now_."  
~*~*~*~  
Shane would like to pretend it says something awesome and profound about his relationship with Brendon that he finally got his Urie stamp of approval at Disneyland, the place guaranteed to make Brendon's girls run.

They hit the rides early in the morning, to avoid the crowds and the sun; Shane helped slather Alan with sunscreen and made Brendon put it on, too, because Brendon liked to peel his skin off and leave it _everywhere_. He left his camera in the room — the various sisters-in-law had four, between them — and walked between Kyla and Grace, mostly, because going anywhere Disney with Brendon was like walking a new puppy without a leash.

Sometimes Shane considered leashes as a lifestyle choice, and not the kinky kind. But they were a big enough group to keep an eye on Brendon, and anyway they had the kids, who Brendon revolved around whenever they were in the same state. Shane kept one eye out for Brendon's ridiculous sunglasses, occasionally hooked a finger in Emma's tiny hoodie to keep her from getting trampled, and gave Kyla pointers on framing her shots.

The Uries had always been polite, had smiled and invited him to family celebrations and made small talk. It probably hadn't hurt that Shane had been Brendon's shiny new friend when they were crafting that first fragile peace, but Shane's met Matt's college roommate and Kara's study partner. They welcome people in. (It's possible Brendon mutters darkly about social conversion when he hears Shane accepting invitations to parties Brendon doesn't want to attend, but whatever. They won't try anything official, not with Shane, and there are worse traditions than making people feel like part of the family, whatever the roots of it.)

Shane hadn't expected to be included in their Christmas plans, but he was wholly incapable of resisting Brendon's pleading eyes when it had anything to do with his family. Shane had been buffering Urie family events practically since he _met_ Brendon, and he knew exactly why he was sometimes necessary. Things had been better for a long time, but the whole week in close proximity was a lot to ask of everybody.

Now it was easy, second nature, talking basketball with Boyd and asking Toby about his chess team; distracting Brendon with shiny objects when church activities came up and humming along to the old songs everybody but Shane knew the words for. They landed somewhere made of orange metal for lunch, and Shane took Emma from Mason's wife, propped her on his hip. Grace was organizing them with the tired efficiency a lifetime of being a mother had given her, shoving the boys and Kara at the tables to go hold places for the rest of them, making sure everybody going up to the counter had everybody else's order down. She hesitated fractionally when she got to Shane and Brendon, who was bending down to make faces at Emma. Shane smiled at her.

"You know what I want, right?" he asked Brendon, and Brendon nodded.

"Split some nachos?"

"Sure." Shane smiled at Grace again and went to sit with the married men and the single lady, just slightly bemused by the division of labor. He settled himself at one end of the long row of tables, dragging over a high chair for Emma. She didn't want to go, though, and he settled her on the tabletop instead, facing him. She started to tell him about the mouse ears she had seen in a window, slightly incoherently, and Shane was so sunk in translating her to English that he jumped when he felt a hand on his arm.

"Sorry, man," Matt said wryly. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"She's a fascinating lady," Shane said, smiling at Emma, who'd gotten interested in the little bells on her shoelaces and wasn't paying attention anymore.

Matt grinned just like Brendon. "I just wanted to say — he could tell us."

Shane raised his eyebrows, puzzled.

"I mean — if you two wanted to, like. Officially. We're always glad to have you, Shane, you get that, right? All of us."

Shane could feel his face turn red. "I — ah — "

Matt leaned back hastily. "Sorry, I mean, I didn't — no pressure. I just — it would be nice. I — I wanted him to know it was safe."

Shane huffed out a quick, unhappy breath. "It's not you, Matt. Not any of you. That's not — it's not why he hasn't, like, invited you into our life or anything. He's not scared of that, I don't think. "

He made himself stop babbling, and did his best to smile. "He'll tell you when he finds someone special, Matt. There's no problem with you. We're not together, that's all," and it wasn't a lie.

It wasn't a lie, and that was why there was nothing profound about where Shane got approved. The part where it wasn't a lie left out the truth: there was a problem.

It just wasn't with the Uries.  
~*~*~*~  
They start the day in a burst of beautiful energy. Zack, primed by their dinner, doesn't mention Ryan's name at all, doesn't suggest that Jon should join them, and between them he and Shane guide Spencer to a great many opportunities to shoot aliens and yell at the top of his lungs. It's good for him, Shane can tell. There's more color in his face now than there has been in almost two weeks.

Sarah's more than game, polite but not familiar with Zack, ruthless in one-upping Brendon's roller coaster tolerance. She fights with Spencer about slushies versus Dippin' Dots and is gracious about losing; lets Shane steal her fries; insists on buying Brendon's lunch. She isn't showing much sign of being scared off yet, but it's still early in the day, still normal-people time.

As long as the roller coasters are what's going, Brendon's a pretty normal Disneyland visitor, especially with Zack to keep him in arm's reach. Around four o'clock, though, when everybody's getting tired of their stomachs swooping around, Brendon starts to pay attention to his surroundings, to the gift shops and trivia posted all over the place. This is the point where most people's energy is lagging, and all they want to do is sit _down_ and rest, while Brendon insists on dragging his party all over the park in search of Chip and Dale's autographs. His mind is too active to appreciate sitting in the hot sun with a bunch of people who mostly want to complain about how their feet hurt.

Shane doesn't mind it, even when the weather's hot, because Brendon gets terrifically earnest and excited. Brendon's at his most elemental when he's sunk in being a big dork, whether it's a musical dork or a cartoon conglomerate dork, and Shane likes to watch him. Spencer and Zack suffer in good humor because they're used to it. The Uries, in Shane's experience, handed Brendon the hyperactive ten-year-old and pointed him in another direction while they took the younger kids to sit on the grass.

Shane's been waiting for this all day, the time when Brendon will get adorable and insistent, for the moment when Sarah realizes exactly what she's gotten herself into. Brendon won't care that she's dumped him — Shane knows when Brendon's invested in relationships, and there's been no sign of it. A nice clean break, with Brendon's anti-Shane-relationship point made, and no more Sarah perched around the house forcing them to pretend there's no tension in the air.

Zack and Spencer's steps have slowed to a crawl, and Brendon's climbed on Zack's back and tried to drive him faster at least twice already. They've hit two shops in quick succession, and Shane isn't quite sure how he wound up with Brendon fastening a Daisy Duck charm bracelet around his wrist, but he's going with it. Sarah's been shaking her legs out absently, like they're getting sore and cramped.

Any second now…

Brendon bounds over from the big board of announcements he's been studying. "Hey, it says the cast of Peter Pan will be signing autographs on the other side of the park! I wanna go meet Captain Hook, c'mon!"

"Are you crazy?" Sarah demands, and Shane doesn't let himself smile in triumph, not at all. "Smee is the best thing about that movie, and if you think Captain Hook can hold a candle to him you are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity."

Shane blinks at her, and for a second, Brendon does, too. "Did you just quote _Toy Story_ to make your point about a pirate from Peter Pan?" he asks uncertainly.

Sarah raises her eyebrows at him. "You got a problem with that?"

"I — no."

"You gonna tell me Captain Hook is better than Smee?"

"I — no. "

She smiles at him, a lofty, superior smile. "Sorry to hear it. I was looking forward to grinding you into dust."

Brendon blinks at her again, and then, slowly, he starts to smile. "Tell you what," he says, looking her right in the eye. "Let's go find 'em, and you can argue with me on the way."

"Okay, then," she says, and lets Brendon take her hand and drag her away. Shane lets Spencer and Zack go ahead of him, walking a little slower in his bemusement.  
~*~*~*~  
Shane has been around for most of Brendon's sexual growth, is the thing. All jokes about "growth" aside.

He wasn't there for the technical "awakening," of course, though he's heard the stories everybody tells, ragging on Brendon's early-day fuckups. He knows some of the other stuff, too, a combination of dropped crumbs and just knowing Brendon really, really well; knows that Brendon was both a king of TMI and weirdly private about sex at first, that he approached it with a combination of uncertainty, greed, and awe.

By the time they met, sex wasn't new to Brendon, and by the time he got back from summer tour, sex with guys wasn't either. So Shane wasn't around for _all_ of it, but...most. He was there for the first few people who were using Brendon for his fame; he was there for the first time Brendon used one of them _back_.

(It wasn't till after that Brendon started to have any faith in his own sexiness, the fucked-up-edness of which Shane worried about. Brendon was good at sex, in the way people can be when they're confident and clearly enjoying themselves, open to taking risks; it sounded like a _Cosmo_ article, but it was true anyway, that it didn't take much more than that. He was best in friends-with-benefits situations, and Shane didn't just know that from personal experience: it was a small bus. Somehow being aware that everybody was in it for the fun meant that Brendon paid more attention to whether the other person was having any.)

He'd been there for Brendon's one-night stands (and pointed them toward the coffee afterward); for Brendon sliding back into the booth at a club, grinning and swiping at the lipstick on his collar. He'd seen Brendon keep girls around for a few weeks or a month, swiping cattily at their skills and personalities when their backs were turned. He _hadn't_ seen Brendon with a boyfriend, ever, but then Brendon's attitude toward homosexual activity was hand-grown by the likes of Wentz and Saporta, and just going below the waist didn't make it less casual.

He'd seen Brendon smirk over having a hot girl on his arm; watched Brendon's hand curl over someone's thigh, crude and possessive.

He's never seen him smile like that before, though. Soft and surprised, delighted. Like maybe he's not only aware there's a person in there, but he kind of likes the fact.  
~*~*~*~  
Zack goes home. Shane lets Brendon drag the whole crowd of them to the beach once or twice, sends out his resume a few times, bullies Spencer into smiling and playing video games and being normal for a few hours a day. Jon comes over occasionally for coffee and to answer Spencer's quietly insistent questions about Ryan's eating habits; Shane draws him aside after with excuses about lighting consultations. They wind up these conversations with, "If you need anything, man," and "Sure, sure, you too," and pretend they're not really talking about switching caretakers, maybe. They're feeling their way, blind as bats, and both of them know it — it's Ryan's job to prod Spencer during his fits of moping, Spencer's to stand steadfast and coax Ryan through his artistic expressions of pain.

It isn't really helping that Jon and Shane are equally clueless about why Keltie dumping Ryan is such a sore spot between _Spencer_ and Ryan; God only knows what toes they're accidentally squashing with their big, mere-years-of-friendship clodhoppers. Brendon won't look Shane in the eye when the Keltie thing lurks in quiet conversation, which ought to mean he knows something, but he's blatantly bewildered by Spencer's sadness, so it isn't that he could fix SpencerandRyan and isn't telling.

Sarah's still around, in the face of all previous experience; she and Brendon moved on to _Emperor's New Groove_ vs. _Atlantis_, and detoured to attentively watch a live performance of _High School Musical 2_. Sarah made delighted remarks about the homoeroticism of the baseball scene, and Shane grudgingly let her win him over just a little bit more.

She cooks, now, occasionally, encouraging Brendon to break the rule about sharp things and coaxing Spencer into opinions on spices. Her bras keep springing out of the laundry basket, vibrant padded things with swirls or hearts on them. Shane has twice now just barely avoided walking in on her and Brendon giggling in the bathroom, half-dressed and flicking water at each other, something playful and predatory in the way they tugged at one another's buttons and hooks.

It's been six weeks, and there's been no word around the scene about Ryan's virtual disappearance from their lives, no mention of Spencer's closed, unhappy face or the way Jon shows and jokes but never stays long. Shane gives up worrying their private lives will end up public news, but that leaves him lacking explanations for his own behavior.

Shane finds he's gritting his teeth a little more often these days. He has a little less patience with the poor dogs, who are quite as happy to be scratched behind the ear by Sarah as they are anyone else. He's only had Brendon in his bed twice in almost a month; both times he was rougher than he meant to be, rougher than he's ever been unless Brendon was begging for it with sharp teeth and flailing limbs. (Brendon didn't seem to notice, but then, Brendon needs rough sex pretty often. Maybe he's missed the fact that there's usually a reason for Shane to pin him down, fuck him hard and unforgiving.) Brendon didn't let him leave marks, either time.

Somehow, though, the vague itch of dissatisfaction stays a mere itch. He maybe looks in other directions when they go to clubs and Brendon pulls Sarah out on the floor, but he doesn't see any reason not to go. Walking into the kitchen to find Brendon on his knees in front of Sarah with her panties around her ankles mostly makes him roll his eyes and yell things about how people have to eat in there.

Then one night he walks into a quiet house, not even the usual cascade of yips from their pack of tiny, ridiculous dogs. The light's still on in the laundry room, where he dumps his bag, but the rest of the house is dark. He figures everybody's out and doesn't bother flicking the lights — this house has been home long enough to get up to bed without fussing about which switch controls which light. Spencer has a thing about switches going up for "on" and down for "off", anyway.

Shane's humming — something Brendon's been messing with that doesn't have any words yet — as he strolls down the hallway, sees the flickering blue light of the TV. Huh.

He stops to peer around the corner. Brendon and Sarah are sprawled across the couch, not even cuddling, really — one of her legs is across Brendon's thigh, but there's a dog between them and two more piled on their laps. On the screen, Fezzik has his hand fisted in Inigo's hair; he's dunking him into the barrels of cold water, over and over again. The light dances over their faces as they turn their heads just slightly to grin at each other.

And then — hard to the gut — it hurts.  
~*~*~*~  
Shane has a small, secret treasure trove of moments Brendon has felt _his_, utterly, affectionately _his_; mental snapshots of a look, a smile, a touch, tiny and warm and curling up inside his chest.

Brendon, sweaty and wrung out, cock limp against his thigh, stretching lazily and offering Shane a wrist to rub the handcuff marks out of, a slow easy grin on his face.

Brendon, eyes closed, opening his red, swollen mouth to swallow Shane down, his expression one of quiet bliss.

Brendon in the shower, scrubbing his hair with both hands and winking at Shane from under the suds.

Brendon at the breakfast table on Christmas morning, elbowing Shane in the side when his sister-in-law said something that could totally be taken in completely the wrong way if you were twelve. Or Brendon Urie.

Brendon, lighting up the first time Bogart saw him coming and came running up to jump into his arms.

Brendon, curled up on the floor with his head on Shane's knee, looking up and laughing with shining eyes when Wolf ordered dinner in _10th Kingdom_.

Those moments are the closest Brendon's ever come to being somebody's boyfriend, really — the closest he's come in the time Shane's known him, at least. Shane keeps them coiled in his memory for when he needs them. He's never quite minded not being Brendon's boyfriend, because he knows that he's the next-best thing. He's what would be Brendon's boyfriend if Brendon were capable of being a boyfriend. Other people have never mattered, the "girlfriends", because it was an empty title, completely devoid of Brendon's loud, wild yelp of joy when they signed the last papers to buy their house together.

Shane can't stand it, he's suddenly sure, he can't _stand_ it if Sarah gets to have everything Shane has and the title, too. If Brendon tells her he loves her — romantic, schmoopy, forever and always loves her — when Shane had never been able to get more than a, "Love ya, man," out of him, Shane will never recover.  
~*~*~*~  
It's the next day that Shane comes in to the kitchen to see Brendon wrestling with a travel planning website, clicking out of the various pop-up windows with increasing ferocity.

Shane wants to smile, and tease him. He still can't quite draw breath enough for that. His whole skin feels scraped thin and easily bruised, broken. Brendon hears the cup being set on the counter, though, and he twists to offer Shane an absent smile.

Shane's lips twitch, more smile-like than they have any right to be, considering his sleepless night, lying curled tight into his sheets with Indy nosing at his face, trying to make him do something besides lie still and breathe slow, long breaths. He wasn't able to bring himself to push her away, anymore than he can _not_ smile back when Brendon smiles at him.

"Can you explain to me how I'm supposed to book a flight when every time I click a button I get a new menu and six new windows?" Brendon asks, clicking again.

Shane reaches for the coffepot and pours another mugful. "Can you explain to me why you're booking a flight?" he says, mildly curious. Zack handles travel arrangements for the band; he can't think of anywhere personal Brendon is expected, and Jon is _here_, back from his brief jaunt to Chicago.

"Expedia has a two-for-one deal for July, in theory." Brendon's tone is dubious.

Shane frowns for a second. "What — oh. The wedding? I forget the date — remind me so I don't schedule any filming that weekend, okay?"

Brendon turns, his eyebrows raised in surprise. "Did you want to come, too?"

Shane blinks at him. "I...you did say two for one?"

"Well, yeah," Brendon says, slowly. "But I meant — I figured, you know. It's a good time to introduce Sarah. Everybody will be too busy with the wedding to really interrogate her, and — Shane?"

Shane feels like he's at the end of a long, dark tunnel, hollow winds rushing past his ears as he fights to stay upright and the tunnel gets longer.

"Shane?" Brendon says again, and Shane looks up to see that Brendon has a hand on his elbow and is peering anxiously into his face. "You okay, dude?"

Shane knocks Brendon's hand away from him. He can't — he can't have Brendon's skin against his right now.

"Shane?" Wary, now.

Shane makes himself breathe in slowly once, twice. "You're taking Sarah to the wedding," he says, fighting to keep his tone even. "You want her to meet your family."

"I — yeah." Brendon still looks _confused_, for God's sake.

"You're _serious_."

Brendon frowns at him. "I'm not _joking_. I think they're going to want to meet my girlfriend, dude."

"Your _girlfriend_," Shane says, and realizes his voice is shaking despite his best efforts. "You're taking her home to meet them. As your girlfriend."

"I — yeah," Brendon says, helplessly. "Are you — seriously, dude, are you okay?"

Shane sucks in another breath, faster and harsher this time. "For someone who was just outstripped by a rival he met two months ago," he says, tight and hard, "I'm fan-fucking-tastic."

Brendon blinks.

Shane snatches his keys from their hook by the door, gets in the car, and drives.  
~*~*~*~  
END PART TWO


	3. Jon

**PART THREE: JON**  
~*~*~*~  
The buzz of his phone across the nightstand jolts Jon awake the night of February fifteenth.

It's only eleven-thirty, but sometime when Jon was off getting high and being a doo-wop girl, Cassie became a grown-up, and she likes to go to the gym before work in the morning. It's hell on Jon's system to change from tour sleeping to home sleeping, but it's worth it every time to slip in beside her for a soft good-night kiss in the lamplight, to have a chance at persuading her to make her morning adrenaline rush a little more primal.

She stirs in her sleep, and he murmurs nonsense absently as he clicks to the new text message from Spencer, stark across the glowing screen.

_Jon, u hv to cm tk cr of Ryan._

He frowns, taps out, **Wats rong?**

_Kltie brk up w hm._

"_What_?" It's loud in the quiet room, and Cassie sits up, glancing wildly as she reaches for him. She stops and rolls her eyes when they land on the phone, and leans to rest her forehead against his shoulder blade, waiting until he can tell her about it.

**Shit**

_Yeah_

_Ull cum?_

**Oc if u need me. He rlly needs 2? Hw worrd shd i b?**

There's a long wait, and Jon can feel himself tensing up. Ryan's a lot more screwed in the head than most people are aware of, and there are all kinds of worst-case scenarios here.

Finally the phone lights up again. _Jst u i cant_

Jon's eyes widen so far it hurts his eyelids. **Wtf why not????**

Another long pause, and Jon gropes behind him for Cassie's hand, grabbing tight enough it has to be hurting her a little. She reaches up to his neck with the other one, rubbing where the muscles are tightening.

_Its my fault she did it  
_  
Jon drops the phone, and has to scramble to pick it up again. **Wtf do u mean by tht?** he demands with hasty fingers, nearly sending the text with four extraneous Ls tacked onto the end.

But this time there's no reply.

After about five minutes Cassie hooks her chin over his shoulder. "Bad?"

"Bad enough, _fuck_."

She presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw. "They need you?" There's no irritation to her voice, no resentment, only curiosity and a little tired resignation.

He turns to rest his forehead against hers, breathing in her night smells of clean sweat and toothpaste going stale. After a few minutes, he kisses her softly, and she kisses back. He mumbles against her mouth, "You're the best, you know that?"

She grins against his lips. "I know."  
~*~*~*~  
Jon is a little worried about having to be the grown-up here.

Most of the time, it was Spencer, of the four of them. Zack and Shane were grown-ups sometimes, too, but of the people on stage, it was Spencer who kept the beat, controlled their timing, and gave all that emotion a point to drive at. Metaphors were a beautiful kind of thing. Spencer might be youngest, but he was the drummer, and Jon didn't know whether he became a drummer because he was the grown-up or he was the grown-up because drumming taught him a few things, but it was a sort of chicken-egg, bluegrass-jazz Zen.

It seemed reasonable, however, that if the drummer crashed a few cymbals unexpectedly, it was the bassist's job to step in and keep the song going steady. Jon didn't object to that.

It was the way it was the guitarist/lyricist and the lead vocalist's job to pour out their feelings in an overwhelming wave of sound that had Jon worried.  
~*~*~*~  
"I don't get why you won't tell me anything," Jon tells Ryan, reasonably.

"It's stupid that you won't tell me anything," Jon says to Spencer, exasperated.

"It's really stupid that you won't tell me anything," Jon grumps to Shane.

"Tell me something, _anything_," Jon pleads with Brendon.

"NOBODY WILL TELL ME ANYTHING, THIS IS SO STUPID," he shouts down the line at Eric, who makes sympathetic noises, but doesn't actually know anything to tell him.

The internet knows a little, but all it really knows is that Ryan cheated and a ring was involved. Cassie can't ask because of the complex treaty inherent in the politics of girlpacks, and he only wishes that weren't a direct quote. Pete was apparently cleverly diverted from the topic seventeen times by a well-timed, "Look at Bronx!" and gave up in the face of such wily tactics.

Jon sort of wishes that weren't a direct quote, too.

It's only been a few days, but he is already tired of going from one house to the other, or of meeting in the middle at the same coffee shop which never has amaretto syrup. He is tired of Spencer's insistence on minutely detailed reports of Ryan's well-being, of watching Ryan carefully not ask at all. He has no clue why Brendon is so clearly choosing Spencer's side, or at least so clearly avoiding Ryan.

He is so fucking sick of the bright artificiality of Brendon's smile and the desperate way he clings to Sarah, and what the fuck is going on there, anyway? Shane's prowling and edgy around her in a way Jon has never seen Shane treat another human being.

Ryan seems to be avoiding Shane, but nothing the other way around, so Shane isn't on Brendon's side (although why does Brendon get a side? _What does Brendon have to do with anything?_) but Ryan is sure Shane doesn't want Ryan on his side…

He gives up on the coffee and goes back, gets Ryan high again instead.

If Spencer had anything else in mind when he asked to Jon to take care of Ryan, maybe he should communicate about it. Jon can't fix a clock if he can't see the springs, and hey, maybe that's a line for a song.

"No," Ryan says, and kicks his heels against the wall.

Jon pouts and steals the bong back.  
~*~*~*~  
Secrecy has never been the obstacle before.

Spencer and Ryan never hid the fact that they were fucking each other, even though they never talked about it, either. Jon had been too much on the outside, at first, and too new, later, to actually ask questions about this complicated arrangement that allowed Spencer to discreetly hook up with other people they were touring with — guys or girls from other bands, engineers and techs — and Ryan to do his intense serial monogamist thing, except that clearly it wasn't monogamous because: Spencer. But he wasn't _blind_ and he wasn't _deaf_ and anyway, it was just _so_, it was just _true_, part of life like the smell of guitar wires and the rumble of wheels underneath.

It stopped after the VMAs, and Jon didn't know why, was still too new to ask. By the time they'd had the cabin, bonded through the fire (literal) and fire (metaphorical) of writing and trashing the album and building up the joy and nonsense that was _Pretty Odd_, it was so far in the past that it would have been the most awkward thing in the fucking _world_ to bring up. He had the right to know, by then, but no reason to know it — it didn't seem to mess with the band or with their friendships or anything else, didn't seem to affect the world as it currently was.

Now it's affecting things, clearly, and now Jon has the right to ask, and now everybody's hiding.

Jon can't catch a break, goddammit.  
~*~*~*~  
Pete calls and asks them to come out to dinner with him, one of those places he says the name of like Jon's supposed to A) recognize it and B) be impressed. It sounds exhausting, and Jon gets enough exhausting with his own band's diva. He wraps Ryan up in a mildly eccentric suit, sends him off with Pete, and gives himself a night off.

Baseball, pretzels, and beer, baby. Sometimes you just have to take space.

Chicago's down by two and Jon's standing up shouting at the right fielder when Ryan comes back in with that look on his face like he's just been hit with a dead flounder.

(Specific, yes, but there is really nothing Katie Kay can't get out of catering when she has a prank war to win.)

"How was it?" Jon asks, hitting mute and turning so only one eye's on the TV.

"Fine," Ryan says, absently, and then, "Pete invited Brendon, too."

Jon swivels abruptly so he's fully facing Ryan. "_Brendon_ was there?" he demands, and then, moderating his tone, "How'd it go? You guys doing any better?"

Ryan tips his head to one side and considers, a sheepish smile growing on his face.

"I…yeah. I think…I think we might be good now."

Jon heaves the world's most enormous sigh of relief.

"So we can go for breakfast tomorrow like normal people?"

"I…sure. I guess," Ryan says.

Jon hugs him hard, lifting him up off the ground. It was less ridiculous when Ryan was a porcelain doll instead of a stick figure, but whatever. It's a ritual. If Brendon were here, too, that would be best, Brendon and…Jon's arms tighten involuntarily.

"Ry?" he says, tentatively, not letting Ryan's toes brush the floor yet.

"Yeees?"

"Spencer, too?"

Ryan freezes for a second, then he starts wiggling to get down. "I — Jon, lemme go."

Jon holds him even tighter. "Not Spencer?" he says, a little resigned already, and Ryan's flailing gets more frantic. Jon lets him down, but doesn't let him go.

Ryan won't look him in the eye. "Jon, I _can't_\--" he starts, and then his tone changes. "He won't. And I — I deserve it. So let it go, okay?" And he wrenches free, takes off bounding up the stairs, before Jon can even start to piece together an answer.  
~*~*~*~  
Still, at least Pete has solved a part of the problem, more than Jon's been able to do. It seems unfair that he's better with Jon's band than Jon is. On the other hand, Jon follows Pete's advice and Pete is blissfully hypocritical that way.

"You have to let them sort it out themselves, man," Pete told him once, crackly over a bad connection. Jon was curled up in his bunk, barely a permanent member of the band and frustrated by Ryan and Brendon's bitchfits over nothing in particular. "The more you interfere between two bandmates, the more likely you'll make it worse."

"_Spencer_ does it," Jon said, petulant. It didn't feel like _his band_, if he couldn't fight with them. But it was his enough that he didn't want it to be broken.

"Spencer has Jedi mind tricks," Pete told him, severe. "I would let Spencer solve problems in _my_ band. The rules for Spencer are not the same as they are for ordinary mortals. Besides, he's known Ross since they were infants, and if he steps on toes it's because they damned well need to be stepped on. He _aims_ for them. It's nothing like his dancing."

Jon cracked up then, even though he knew Pete was trying to make him.

"Seriously, man," Pete went on, grinning through the phone. "I don't mess with Joe and Andy, ever, and they don't poke between me and Patrick. Don't take sides, don't try to make peace, _don't_ force the issue."

Ninety-eight percent of the time, this is excellent advice, Jon has discovered over the years. Ryan and Brendon's fights have their own rhythm, something he hadn't known back then — they have to fight in order to function. Spencer and Ryan are a nest of snakes it's best not to poke. And when Jon and Brendon fight it's true he wouldn't want Ryan sticking his nose into it. (Nobody minds Spencer interfering, when he chooses to, because it's always the right decision. Maybe it _is_ a Jedi mind trick.)

There's a nagging voice at the back of his head that says this is one of the two-percent times, but he's had enough trouble messing with fights he ought to stay out of to be wary about listening to the voices in his head. Not yet, anyway.  
~*~*~*~  
Ryan has developed a fascination with fire that's a little worrying. It reminds Jon of the days in the cabin. Leaving aside what that says about Ryan's current state of mind, Jon's started to hide the expensive equipment when twilight falls. The enamel on that guitar popped in some unexpected and scarring ways, and setting the woods on fire _cannot_ be an option.

Currently, Ryan seems satisfied to burn the scraps of wood he can pick up while ambling through the woods, which Jon is grateful for until he almost falls off a cliff. Getting firewood in the dark, as one does. Jon cusses him out, nervous breakdown or no nervous breakdown. The resultant fight, in which Ryan accuses Jon of coddling him and Jon threatens to handcuff him to the kitchen sink, takes two hours to have and another three of sulking on both sides to resolve, and Jon doesn't get to sleep until way later than even their rock star lifestyle usually allows for.

He meets Spencer for breakfast at ten, half-awake and cranky.

"I don't understand why it's coddling from me and he just _takes_ it from you," Jon grumbles, rubbing at his sticky eyes irritably while they wait for a table. He was careful not to mention Spencer's name all through the fight last night, which is perhaps why A) it took so long and B) he's breaking unspoken codes now. Mostly Jon's just fed up, though. Screw psychoanalysis. This is _Spencer's job_, goddammit — he knows how to do it and Ryan _lets_ him do it. Jon is doing it wrong, he's pretty sure, or it wouldn't be affecting his sleep patterns.

Spencer stills, and Jon's sorry he said anything after all. "What happened?" Spencer asks quietly, tension thrumming under the question like a single bass note.

"Aw, you know Ryan," Jon says, trying to cover the slip with caustic good humor. "He went looking for wood in the dark and nearly fell off the cliff, the idiot."

Spencer lets out an unconvincing chuckle. "He should be kept in a cage."

"Yeah, well, if you can find one big enough for his precious woodland, let me know," Jon says, and changes the subject. He knows better than blame Spencer for Ryan. Spencer blames himself plenty already.

He tells Spencer about the hiking trip they've planned instead, telling him about scouting routes and his and Ryan's adventures in Walmart's sporting goods section. Spencer's quiet, quieter than usual, neglecting to drop pretend-casual questions about what Ryan's eating and how often he's attached to a notebook, and he doesn't stick around once he's picked up the check.

"I'll talk to you later?" he says, sliding out of the booth, and Jon says, "Not for a few days — the hike, you know. We'll be back in a few days."

"Right," Spencer says, and claps Jon on the shoulder before he goes out to his car, looking preoccupied.

Jon and Ryan spend a few dusty days off-road in Ryan's new home canyon. Ryan falls down a lot and Jon laughs at him and Ryan communes with the parts of nature he doesn't trip over. They come home sunburnt and good friends again, Ryan calmer and happier than he's been since Jon came to California.

They take long, hot showers and toss a frozen pizza in the oven, worn out and pleased with themselves. Ryan takes off for a walk in the half-light, promising not to walk over the cliff edge with a light tone in his voice instead of an ugly one. Jon laughs and pitches a pine cone after him, tossing newspaper and kindling into the bonfire pit just in case Ryan wants to build one when he gets back. It's almost full dark before Jon starts to worry.

He finds Ryan at the cliff edge, staring. Across the twenty yards or so between the chain link fences that mark where Ryan's property ends and his neighbors' begin, there is now a short, solid wall of hollow garden bricks. Jon stops abruptly, and Ryan swings around to face him.

"Where did this come from?" he demands. "I didn't tell anybody about falling off, did you?"

"Just Spence," Jon says, startled into truth, and wishes with all his heart he hadn't when three days of peace and sun crumple off Ryan's face, leaving naked hurt and wretched guilt behind.  
~*~*~*~  
Jon can't believe he wasn't expecting this, just because they're not speaking at the moment. Spencer _always_ protects Ryan from himself.

Once, they'd been fighting for three days over Jon-had-no-idea-what — sniping, backbiting, and ignoring in approximately equal measures. The bus had felt tiny and overfull, with Jon and Brendon dodging from the front lounge to the back in an effort to avoid being trapped in a room with them. The stupid thing was the way they never actually avoided each other; if either of them wandered off the other would wander that direction, too, in short order. Nobody who didn't have to sleep there was on their bus at all, and half the crew were bunking out on the other buses or even in the Cab's van, if they could scrape together the Mountain Dew.

They had an interview in the morning with some local paper, promotion for the tour and the album, and Ryan and Brendon were appropriately moaning because it was their turn to get up early and put up with some idiot who would inevitably ask inappropriate questions and get everything wrong anyway.

Spencer was at the coffee machine, ostentatiously ignoring the conversation and tapping the side of the machine like that would make it brew faster.

"Nine o'clock," Zack said, firmly, and Brendon and Ryan moaned. Zack peered at his phone, frowning a little. "I think we've met her before..."

Brendon cocked his head. "Really? What's her name?"

"Harriet Hayes," Zack said, still frowning. "I'm not quite sure--"

"I'll do it with you, Brendon," Spencer interrupted him. "Wake me up for the interview, Zack." And he poured out half a mug of coffee and disappeared down the hall to the back lounge without waiting for a response. Jon raised his eyebrows at Ryan, who shrugged back, and waited a whole six minutes before following Spencer to the back of the bus and getting the raised voices going again.

Two days later, still curious, and bored because Spencer and Ryan were fighting in the front lounge _again_, Jon tried searching for "Harriet Hayes" and "Panic! at the Disco," turning up an article from an early tour, in which the woman had asked about Ryan's dad. Jon made a face at the article and clicked away from it, wishing stupid reporters had a little more tact, and glad that Spencer carried a list of the really idiotic ones around in his head.  
~*~*~*~  
Jon doesn't know who sent the pictures to Ryan.

Zack came by the day after Disneyland to see them, but he was briefed by Shane (Jon _loves_ Shane) and didn't mention the other household at all. Jon thought that between himself, Zack, Pete, and Shane that everybody they know must be aware of the extreme sensitivity of the topic, but apparently somebody forgot to take Ryan's name off a mailing list or something. The first Jon hears of it is when Ryan's phone crashes into the other side of the kitchen wall, and their eggs burn while he wraps his arms around Ryan and lets him cry and cry.

Ryan still won't tell him what's wrong.

Jon hates to leave him--_hates it_\--but it's his nephew's birthday, and he can't miss it. He arranges to stay a week, take care of everything he might need to do so he can stay a good long while when he gets back, and rides to the airport shotgun in Shane's car. He's arranged with Pete and Greenwald and a couple of others to look in on Ryan and haul him out every once in a while, but he's still uneasy. Ryan needs _family_ right now, he's pretty damn sure, and there's just nobody Jon can ask to move in with him, not if the whole Urie-Valdes-Smith household is on probation. Eric's on tour and Pete's a married man with a baby now and there's just nothing Jon can _do_ but get back as fast as he can.

He thinks, once or twice, as they negotiate the traffic, of asking Shane to look in on Ryan anyway, but Shane's shoulders are set on edge and Jon's pretty sure the Sarah thing is giving Shane some totally unnecessary excess stress, and he's a little afraid Shane is going to snap without putting Ryan on his shoulders as well. He sighs, thumps Shane on the back, and gets on the plane.

Seeing Cassie is like a drink of water after three days of not drinking at all. He pulls her close, right there at baggage claim, and breathes in her clean rosemary smell and the heat of her. She makes soft sounds and holds on for a long time. When he finally pulls away, she smiles at him gently. "Not going so well out there, is it?"

He smiles crookedly. "Not so much, no."

Jon eats his mom's cookies and watches _Wheel of Fortune_ with Cassie for a week, almost obsessively texting Ryan whenever he can get a reply. His phone gets more and more despondent as the week goes on; Ryan feels alone and abandoned and all kinds of other unpleasant things, despite Greenwald's reassurances he's been getting Ryan out into L.A. nightlife. Jon breathes a sigh of relief when he's finally on California soil again, and Ryan's so happy to see him that he agrees to build a bonfire and have a drunken revelry. It's still all he can do, sad as that is.

Ryan's started writing again, erratically and in a tone Jon doesn't like to read at all, but at least it's something. They spend a couple of days setting up the recording equipment in an extra room on the first floor--not soundproofed, but at least nobody else is living in the house and there's enough space that the neighbors won't complain. Ryan sets to feverishly, guitar twanging at four in the morning, and Jon doesn't even mind much, because it means Ryan's working at least a few things out.

They're making sandwiches in the kitchen, a week after Jon gets back, when the doorbell rings forcefully. Jon raises an eyebrow at Ryan, who shrugs that he wasn't expecting anybody. Both of them go to the door; Ryan swings it wide and then stops abruptly when he sees that it's Shane on his doorstep.

Shane smiles. It isn't at all a happy smile. "You slept with my boyfriend," he says, and Jon does a mental doubletake. Ryan nods, small and unhappy.

"I'm pretty sure you owe me sanctuary, then," Shane says, and shoves past Ryan into the house.

Jon looks at Ryan, his jaw hanging open.

Ryan shrugs. "He's got me there," he says, and shuts the door again. "I'll go finish the sandwiches."  
~*~*~*~  
Jon has never before been _this_ confused by the crazyass things his bandmates do. Even after the VMAs wasn't this crazy, if only because it involved merely two of his bandmates and not all three plus Shane. They hadn't even known Shane all that well then.

They were going back on the road almost immediately, so Jon stayed in Vegas to rehearse. It gave him the opportunity to observe the insanity firsthand. Ryan was in his firsthand stages of puppy love with Keltie, talking to her on the phone almost nonstop and attached at the thumb to his Sidekick. Spencer watched Ryan _all the fucking time_, but he only smiled when Ryan caught him. The rest of the time he watched him like a parent watching his child learn to walk, anxious and uncertain but determined not to reach out at all.

When Spencer left rooms, Ryan followed him with his eyes, something desperate and trapped in them. When he came back in, Ryan scrabbled for his phone and started texting again like a madman. Spencer smiled small, unhappy smiles at Ryan's phone, which he made bigger and more genuine whenever Ryan looked up at him.

Jon remembers thinking they were all fucking nuts and totally inexplicable, for all they were nice guys and his bandmates and everything. Looking around right now, nothing much has changed at all.  
~*~*~*~  
Shane is, for the moment at least, willing to actually _talk_ about his problems like a fucking grown-up, and Shane's problems apparently don't actually have anything to do with Ryan sleeping with Brendon. Ryan, on the other hand, is still looking stubbornly inclined to silence, so Jon shoves a bigass yellow-starred pin in that whole issue and sticks with the guy who is willing to talk.

He leaves Ryan to sulk in the kitchen and pulls Shane down the hall to Ryan's weird little study. He shoves Shane into the narrow leather office chair, the only actual seat in the place, and perches on the cluttered little caticorner desk himself.

For just a moment, he lets himself look Shane over, note the circles under his eyes and the way his hands are pulling and twisting at his cuffs. Then he looks Shane straight in the eye, and commands, "Tell me."

"He was going to take Sarah to meet his family," Shane blurts, and Jon winces. The inevitable bite in the ass has arrived.

Shane laughs, wry and twisted. "Yeah." He sits and contemplates his fingers, tugging on the wrist of his sleeve for a moment. "I lost it," he admits at last, hardly audible, and the whole story comes spilling out.

Somehow, Jon thinks, it's even worse that anybody with half a brain would have predicted it. It isn't something he can really say to Shane, though, and for a little while after Shane's talked himself raw they just sit in silence.

Finally, Jon sits up. "You know what you need?"

Shane gives his little chuckle of pain again. "A shrink?"

"No." Jon climbs down off the desk and heads for the wall of cabinets. "Booze."

He opens the first cupboard to discover two hats, an actual inkwell with quill, a bottle of Windex, four oranges, six journals, and a flower barrette he can only be eighty percent sure is Keltie's.

He sighs. "This may take a while."

Shane laughs, the raw sound of it actually touched with real amusement. "Sure it's in here somewhere?"

"I stocked it myself," Jon says, aware that this isn't actually any guarantee. Ryan tends to pick things up when he's writing. He'll wander around with them, pondering the mysteries of life--also of alliteration and why nothing rhymes with elephant--and then when he's found the answer (or more likely remembered the things that came to him in the night after eating too much curry at two a.m.), he'll set them down wherever he happens to be and start feverishly scribbling things on whatever writing surface happens to be handy. The problem is exacerbated by his cleaning service's fervent devotion to the idea that anything that is not already in a cupboard belongs in a cupboard.

Jon's stopped letting Ryan use bongs when he's writing--it's joints or he can damn well scribble sober. Jon is still bitter about the blue glass one which may or may not have disappeared into the black hole behind the linen closet.

It takes three more cupboards--the contents of which include paisley boxers, a cheese grater, a broken Bedazzler, and six tubes of toothpaste--before Jon can utter his victory cry.

"Glasses, even!" he announces happily, splashing whiskey into the plastic sippy cups, no lids. He offers one to Shane and taps the rims together with a dull plastic click. Shane laughs again and knocks back the whole six ounces in one go.

Jon makes him slow down after that, but they still arrive at "sloshed" pretty quickly. Jon gives up trying to balance between Ryan's stacks of papers and folds himself onto the rug at Shane's feet instead. Shane pets him clumsily on the head, and Jon rubs his ear against Shane's knee.

Jon misses his cats.

But he can't go see them, no. He had to leave. Had to leave his cats and his Cass, because Ryan needed him. Because Ryan--

"Ryan slept with Brendon?" he hears himself ask aloud, kind of pathetically. Now that he knows, he kind of wishes he were still out of the loop. This is the kind of Panic at the Disco specialty knot that is going to take, like, forks and crochet hooks and possibly blowtorches to unravel.

Shane groans. "Dude, I don't even know. Spencer said so. And then Brendon--I don't know. He didn't say they didn't."

"How did Spencer know?" Jon demands.

"Something about Ryan's teeth," Shane says gloomily.

Jon moans softly and thuds his forehead against Shane's thigh.

"I know," Shane says, and pets Jon's head again.

Jon shakes him off. "This needs more booze before I can think about it," he says decisively, getting up and going to the desk. But the bottle there is all, all gone. He sighs sadly. "I have to go back to the cupboards," he explains to Shane. "They have a black hole behind them."

"It's Ross's house," Shane says wearily. "Nothing would surprise me."

With a laugh, Jon goes back to the wall of cupboards and starts opening them and poking his head in.

The door from the hallways bangs open and misses his head by about six inches. Brendon is standing in the doorway, looking almost as pissed as he does bewildered.

Brendon doesn't even see Jon; he just zooms in on Shane. "What the fuck, Valdes?"

Shane looks up, and then his head drops down again, helpless. "What, Brendon?"

"What the _fuck_?" Brendon doesn't look any more pleased for having to repeat himself.

Shane gestures futilely with his sippy cup. "Sorry."

Brendon sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to tell me what the fuck that was."

Jon is seriously wishing there was some way out of here that wasn't _through Brendon_. He shouldn't be here for this.

"I'm sorry, B." Shane is looking at his hands, his knees. Not at Brendon. "I — you have the right to choose your own life. Of course you do. I have no rights with you. I don't — I'm nobody, really. Don't listen to me."

Brendon makes a tiny, hurt sound in the back of his throat. "I just--I don't get it. I thought you liked Sarah. I thought--I thought we were just--"

Shane looks up, pinning Brendon with his gaze like an old-fashioned naturalist preserving a butterfly. "Thought we were just what, B? Fuckbuddies? _Roommates_?"

"Well...yeah." Brendon's voice is small.

Shane shoves himself out of the narrow office chair and turns on his heel so he's looking at the bookcases, not at Brendon. His voice, when it comes, is choked. "That's what I was to you, Brendon. I know. But--it's not all you were to me. All right? I wanted--I am so fucking in love with you, Brendon, so--I _want_ you. All of you. For real. I know, I know you don't want to be that for me, I know you can't, but it's what I want and you're incapable of--"

Brendon breaks in, indignant, defensive. "You didn't say anything, you never _asked_ me--"

Shane flinches as though the words have struck him, then turns around, eyes narrow, voice just a little hysterical. "Don't you dare, Brendon, don't you dare pretend you wouldn't have run a mile. I know you, I've watched you--I've watched over you and filmed you and seen you, the real you, the _you_ you more than anybody you've met, ever, and I know you better than anybody and you would have run." Shane stops to breathe, great heaving gasps that Jon is a little worried will stop his heart. "You never do anything but play. You never even think of people as anything but fun. Or you didn't, anyway, before _her_, you never dreamed of it. You would have left me and I would have been left without even the little parts of you, just as much without all of you and worse, without even what I could get. Don't you _dare_ deny it--you would have been gone."

"All right," Brendon says, after a second's endless silence. "All right." His voice has gone hoarse and dark. "I would have. I would have run, I nearly ran anyway, though god knows where I would have gone--"

Shane's little laugh leaves even Jon's soul bleeding.

"But," Brendon says, rising above the bitter smear of sound, "I _would have come back._ I did come back. I'm here."

The whole world freezes solid for a moment, Shane's eyes wide, like a deer just after a gunshot.

Brendon takes a hesitant step forward, and halts. "You left me," he says softly. "_You_ left _me_, and I chased you. You gave me the perfect, the golden opportunity to never see you or your stupid relationshippy face ever again, and I followed you. I won't--I can't deny that I'm scared, Shane. I've never done this before. I have never wanted anything as much as I want this and it's big and scary and new, and I have no idea how Sarah fits into any of it, but _I followed you_, and I'm going to follow you the rest of the way."

Shane reaches out to him, then stops and draws back. His hand is shaking. Brendon steps closer again, close enough to reach out and brush his fingers over Shane's hair. "I mean it," he says, low, into Shane's ear. "Show me where to go. Show me how to step. I'll follow you."

Shane lets out just one sound--one soft, breathy noise--before he seizes Brendon close, burying his face in Brendon's neck, collapsing against Brendon's body.

Brendon takes his weight, supports the boneless body. He reaches up to tangle one hand in Shane's hair, smooths long stripes down his back with the other. "I'm here," he says. "I'm here."

Shane turns his head blindly, pressing his mouth to Brendon's. Brendon kisses back, soft, chaste, reassuring, and leans their foreheads together. "I'm here," he says again, looking straight into Shane's eyes.

Brendon, Jon realizes, looks like a real adult; possibly for the first time in his life.

Shane takes Brendon's mouth again, and Brendon gives it gladly, melting into the fierce claiming of the kiss. They are wholly lost in each other, and Jon takes the opportunity to slip out and close the door softly behind him.

They'll have to have sex on Ryan's floor, but he's almost positive they won't mind.  
~*~*~*~  
So in the end, that's simple. Shane and Brendon, for all they're fucked up, are also pretty simple people with simple problems. Fear of losing somebody? Sure. Commitment issues? If you watch sitcoms, all guys have commitment issues. Jon's never really had commitment issues, but then...he has Cass, so. Get a little communication flowing, talk to the girls, hey presto — four-way relationship (seven-way? Jon can't keep track of Regan's other boyfriends, but whatever), locked and loaded for happy-ever-after. Jon's willing to bet on it.

He always was. Bar Brendon, it was Jon Shane first bonded with. Only natural, maybe — both of them were new, adjusting to being part of Panic's inner circle. Both of them were a few crucial years older. Both of them loved cameras and light and telling the truth through pictures. Jon had been following his bandmates to Vegas in between tours because they needed to rehearse like crazy, but Ryan and Spencer went home (the Smith home) after rehearsal. Jon stuck with Brendon because that was less awkward, and Brendon latched onto Shane because he was scared to death to walk into his parents' house and accidentally smash the fragile peace. Voila, a lot of time at Shane's place, and Jon had a friend.

It was Jon who Shane first asked whether Brendon did guys, at all, and Jon who told Shane he should finally go for it, months later. He's always thought they can be trusted with each other. He is _so_ getting named godfather if the government ever lets them adopt.

They weren't tricky at all. It's Spencer and Ryan who are going to be the humdingers.  
~*~*~*~  
Jon heads for the kitchen, and a low moan echoes after him. That's Shane sorted, then, assuming there's lube somewhere in the office cupboards — there probably is, black holes have their uses — and that leaves Ryan for Jon to deal with.

The sandwich fixings are still all over the counter, but the ham on rye Jon was making earlier has been finished and assembled, and there's a peanut butter and jelly waiting for Shane, too. Jon smiles a little and grabs his own sandwich on the way out to the porch, where Ryan is perched on the edge of a patio chair and absently watching a black bird poke at his little bit of lawn.

Jon drops into the chair next to him and takes a bite of his sandwich, which is just right except for a little too much mustard. "Thangs," he says thickly, mouth full, and Ryan nods but doesn't look at him. Jon swallows.

"You let Bden in?" he asks, and takes another bite.

Ryan sighs softly. "Yeah." He sounds resigned.

"And you slept with him a couple months ago?"

Ryan flinches. "Yeah."

Jon nods slowly, chewing. It's kind of a lot to process, but some things are falling into place, at least — Ryan's avoidance of Shane, the Keltie thing, the way Ryan made up with Brendon pretty easily, all things considered. Jon cocks his head, thinking everything through, and swallows to ask the only question he has left.

"So what the fuck has any of it got to do with Spencer?"

Ryan's face goes tight and miserable, not hiding anything anymore.

Jon hates to do it, but he prods anyway. "Ry?"

"Don't ask, Jon," Ryan says, wretched, and he abruptly stands up and heads for the house, tossing the last bit of his sandwich across the lawn for the bird.

The bird startles back for a second, and then approaches the sandwich cautiously, like it might be a bomb about to go off. Jon knows exactly how it feels.  
~*~*~*~  
Jon knows he'll have to interfere after all, now, and he's nervous as hell. In his years as a member of Panic at the Disco, he's only interfered successfully once before, and that was _so much simpler_ than this. _That_ was a fight over which songs to record for Pretty, which had come down to a never-ending argument over whether it would be the summer song or the one about rivers. Spencer wanted the rivers. He didn't want another pretty ballad that hardly needed the drums, he said, there were plenty; Ryan wanted the summer song and he was digging his heels in.

There was something about the way Spencer gritted his teeth when they played the summer song that made Jon think it wasn't entirely about the balance of music on the album. Something confirmed in the way the argument eventually devolved into a shouting match, with Ryan and Spencer standing toe to toe, nose to nose, and at the very top of their voices.

Jon was starting to be worried they would be kicked out of the hotel, soundproofed rooms or no soundproofed rooms.

"How about," he broke in, when they'd stopped for a breather, "kicking up the tempo, instead?"

Both of them stopped to look at him as though they'd forgotten he was there. They probably had.

"What do you mean?" Ryan said warily.

"Keep the lyrics," Jon said, ignoring the way Spencer's face went stony and unhappy at that, "but make it something Spencer can bang the shit out of his drums during."

There was a long silence. Ryan frowned, considering. Spencer bit his lip for a second, then shook himself. "It's the only way it's going on the album, Ryan," he said, dark promise in his voice. "I'm not putting it where I might have to play it on tour unless I really get to hit things."

Ryan nodded. "Okay, then," he said, and it was settled.

It hadn't occurred to Jon at the time that he might be merely wallpapering over the real problem. Recollecting it now makes him very uneasy.  
~*~*~*~  
Nonetheless, Jon has to do _something_. They're booked to go to South Africa in a few weeks, and they're going to _have_ to rehearse. Nobody is _solving_ this thing, and somebody's got to — they have legal obligations, here. Leaving aside individual miseries, they're a band and they have to talk to each other. Jon gives it deep thought for two days and then suggests to both Ryan and Spencer that they should go catch Eric's show in Vegas.

He calls Ginger first. She's just as worried, and immediately agrees to ask Spencer to come a few days early so that he won't expect Jon to fly with him. It's child's play to get Ryan to Vegas once he promises that Ryan won't have to see Keltie if he doesn't want to. (He probably should. He was an asshole. But Jon's priority is his band. Ryan's growth into a mature adult will have to wait until the band is functioning again.)

He calls Spencer while Ryan's showering on the day of the concert and suggests dinner before the show; takes Ryan early and gets him seated while Jon pretends to get a call and go outside to answer it.

"Hey, man," Spencer says, coming up to him and offering a manly, back-clapping hug that Jon maybe returns with a little more enthusiasm than normal. He's nervous.

He walks Spencer back to the table, where Ryan is poking his swizzle stick at something ridiculous in a tall glass. Spencer stops dead. Jon shoves him onward. Ryan doesn't look up until he realizes Jon isn't sitting down. When he does, he turns white.

"Here's the thing," Jon says pleasantly, not letting his voice waver at all, "I still don't know what the hell happened with the two of you, but neither of you hates the other and we have to perform in two weeks. So make your peace or figure out how to fake it. I'm getting pizza with Eric and Than."

He waits until Spencer takes an uncertain seat and Ryan give him a cautious smile.

"Okay, then," Jon says, and goes.

When he gets to the venue, they're waiting beside the back door, and if they're not smiling, at least they're talking. Jon doesn't want to push his luck, so he doesn't ask.

It really does seem better as they get ready to go. They schedule rehearsals at Shane and Brendon's, where the big sunny studio _feels_ like a sparkling new start. Casual conversations are awkward, but they _happen_, and little running jokes start to sneak in like mice in a city apartment, inconspicuous but leaving signs behind. The day Spencer twitters Ryan about picking him up some Dickies shorts, Jon feels a surge of triumph that lasts him all the way onto the plane to South Africa and through the concert there.

They're going on safari next, and they can bond, and soon, Jon's sure, soon everything will be back to some version of normal, some version where Ryan and Spencer are the bedrock of each other's lives, no matter who they're sleeping with.  
~*~*~*~  
That was the first thing he learned about them. Before they'd spoken a word to Jon, before he'd even seen them play, he caught a glimpse of them arriving at the parking lot where the tour convoy was being pulled together.

Pete had been hanging around getting in the way because he was "entrusting my _babies_ to you, William," and Jon had been manhandling him all over the parking lot to keep him out of the way of people who were doing real work. An ancient cab pulled in filled with skinny teenagers, and Jon watched them because there was no way they weren't Pete's new project. He'd heard the album Pete had sent William, and he had to admit he was interested in what they would do, musically, even though the Academy boys were wary of these guys who had come out of nowhere.

The doors of the cab opened and Wilson got out of the front, while Brendon sort of exploded out of the backseat, springing for Pete. Jon was glad somebody else would be there to distract Pete while they finished packing up. Spencer and Ryan climbed out last, Spencer offering a steadying hand to Ryan's elbow when his foot got caught in the cab. Spencer paid the driver and stood waiting for a receipt while Ryan followed Brendon with shy, small footsteps, as though he was still unsure of Pete's welcome.

"Spencer's getting the paperwork done, huh?" Pete greeted him, draped over Brendon's back.

"Nobody else does," Ryan said defensively, and Jon blinked at him. He was awfully quick to take offense; it didn't bode well for the tour.

"True, true," Pete said, ignoring Ryan's tone. "There's a man you need on your side."

Ryan's whole face lit up, and Jon realized that it had been the insult to Spencer that had got his back up. "He is," he agreed softly, smiling that brilliant smile.

"Ryan, get your ass over here!" Spencer commanded, as the cab drove away. "If we get there without your guitar, we'll know who to blame."

"You would never let that happen, Smith," Ryan yelled back, but he went.

Pete shook his head, and Brendon raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"I'm not sure they can breathe without each other, some days," Pete told him.

"Of course not," Brendon said, like Pete had suggested the sky was yellow.

Jon watched them walk toward the trailer with their equipment in it, Ryan in Spencer's casual headlock, and was inclined to believe it.  
~*~*~*~  
The safari is _glorious_. It's all clean, real air and fascinating animals and good friends goofing off. Jon gets to play with his camera an insane amount, and they see _elephants_.

Better than any of that, though, Spencer and Ryan are _talking_ again. Spencer teases Ryan about the hotel they're staying at, and Ryan starts serious conversations about language and life. Jon even catches them cuddling for warmth at night, which is just about the most adorable thing _ever_. He asks the photographer they're hauling along to snap a shot, just as a record of his personal triumph. Jon fixed them. Jon _rules_.

They get back to town with a day of touristing still to do before their flight. Most of them scatter to explore the town, but Spencer and Ryan are going to stick together, apparently. Jon and Brendon grin at each other and don't even try to follow. They arrange to meet up for packing and an evening show after lunch, and Jon and Brendon head for the market.

They get back early and settle into Jon's room, flipping the TV on in the background and exchanging "your mom" jokes at high speed. Brendon's rolling around on the bed, laughing, and Jon is poking him and laughing too, when there's a knock at the door.

"Come in!" Jon yells, trying to trap Brendon's squirming legs between his hands so he can tickle him properly. Ryan opens the door and stands there looking at them for a second. The look on his face is so strange that it only takes a few seconds for both Brendon and Jon to be looking up at him expectantly.

Ryan bites his lip for a second. "I'm not in the band anymore," he says, soft and serious, and Jon has no idea what to say.  
~*~*~*~  
END PART THREE


	4. Spencer

**PART FOUR: SPENCER**  
~*~*~*~  
Spencer gets off the plane in South Africa and takes a deep, cleansing breath. Mostly it smells like airports everywhere, but there's just that little identifying hint that means this is a different place than all the places Spencer has been, a little trace of a scent that says _newnewnew_, and Spencer sucks in another breath and tries to believe it. He turns to watch the rest of their group file off the plane: Brendon rubbing at his eyes, Zack trying to untwist his cramped spine, Jon heavy-footed. And Ryan, looking around curiously.

Ryan's eyes meet Spencer's, and he smiles tentatively.

Spencer stops himself from grinning back too broadly. It's fragile, this. Handle With Care.

He lets himself fall in beside Ryan on the way down the hall, though; bumps his elbow against Ryan's side once or twice. Ryan bumps back.

He bumps _back_.

It is really hard for Spencer not to smile idiotically. It's possible he's not succeeding all that well.

They settle in the hotel, everybody in their own tiny room. There's a faint hint of mold in the air, but the sheets are clean and the lights all work, so it definitely beats some of the rooms they slept in on their first tour. They go out to dinner and have a conversation that almost isn't stilted at all. Spencer walks back to the hotel with Jon, so much tentative hope uncurling in his belly he has to drum on his thighs.

He goes into his room and heads for the sink to splash a little water on his face before bed, and registers the squishing of the edge of the carpet just as he opens the door and a pool of water floods across the carpet with a splooshing sound.

"Gah!" Spencer says, involuntarily, and retreats into the hall, headed for Ryan's room to demand a dry place to stay the night. He's actually at the door, one fist raised, before he stops to recognize that maybe Ryan won't want to see him, much less give him sanctuary.

Today's gone so well. He really doesn't want to find out for sure that Ryan isn't ready to forgive him yet.

He pulls out his phone to tell Zack about the flooding, instead.  
~*~*~*~  
Faltering on the first step is nothing new for Spencer, not when it comes to Ryan.

When he was fifteen years old, Spencer glanced up from a video game to where Ryan was writing in a notebook, lower lip caught between his teeth, and suddenly wanted to touch him more than he wanted to breathe. Ryan's stupid hair was falling across his eyes and his face was intent and as Spencer watched, he shook his head a little, impatiently, and reached up a long-fingered hand to comb his bangs out of his face. Spencer watched his fingers fall back to the bed and thought very specifically of pulling that hand to his mouth, biting the knuckle of the third finger of Ryan's left hand.

It took Ryan a good five minutes to realize that Spencer had automatically hit the pause button; another seven seconds, maybe, to realize that Spence was looking at him. He arched an eyebrow, controlled, brittle with all the arrogance being sixteen could give you. "What's up?"

It took Spencer three seconds to answer him at all; the truth was beyond words. "Want to play?" he said instead, weakly. "I'm getting bored on my own."

"I'm _writing_," Ryan said petulantly.

"Right," Spencer said, quickly. "Never mind."

Sometimes — not always, not even often, but sometimes — it feels like he's just reliving that moment, over and over again.  
~*~*~*~  
Given the safari was Ryan's idea, Spencer should perhaps be less surprised when they get off the open jeep in front of what appears to be a low-slung four-star hotel, with a shimmering crystalline pool peeking out from behind one white corner and bungalows spreading beyond it. It's the cabin all over again, and Spencer lets himself roll his eyes where Ryan can see him.

"Shut up," Ryan says preemptively. "You are going to see huge stinky animals in a hot, dry wasteland. Let me have my Jacuzzi."

"_Jacuzzi_?" Brendon demands, clambering out of the jeep. "Ross, safari means _camping_."

"That may have been its original denotation," Ryan says calmly, sliding his sunglasses up over his forehead and looking down his nose at both of them. "But language in general and the English language in particular are a fluid construct, and the literal translation became secondary when the word was incorporated into — "

Spencer slaps a hand over his mouth, laughing. "Don't get started on slang, Ross," he says, and then he realizes he's _touching Ryan's mouth_ and his laugh gets slightly unhinged. Ryan bats at him irritably, but not like he actually wants to be let go, and Spencer swings him around so the other arm fits around his skinny arms and chest. He starts frogmarching Ryan toward the entrance to the hotel, and Ryan sputters and twists, and Brendon and Jon are laughing behind them, Zack yelling at them to keep track of their own luggage, dammit, if they don't want to wind up with his underwear.

Playing the show helped, playing the show was _great_, but this — this feels like they might, actually, really truly for-real be all right again, and Spencer feels a surge of relief and affection so strong he squeezes Ryan close for a minute before he lets go.

Ryan checks them in, two to a bungalow; his hand hesitates for just a second over the second key in the first envelope before he reaches down and tosses the second envelope at Spencer instead. Spencer doesn't flinch. Time, time, _time_ for Ryan to forgive him, even if the thought of being able to lie across the room and hear Ryan breathe again makes something in the back of his throat close up with longing. They'll get there.

Ryan sweeps up the other envelopes as well with a smile of thanks for the clerk. They head back out to the jeep, where Ryan tosses the last set of keys to the photographer, whatever his name is, and begins his usual paranoid hovering over his suitcases.

Zack doesn't even grump about using duffel bags or being a pack mule, so he must be feeling it, too; this sense that everything is going to be all right.

Three days later, sweaty and exhausted and the chill of African night settling in, Ryan shoves his way up under Spencer's arm. The blanket is scratchy, but warm enough; the air smells something like dried hay.

"_Cold_," Ryan mutters, like a four-year-old, and presses the tip of his nose to the warm hollow between Spencer's collarbones. All Spencer's muscles contract instinctively, and somehow his hand is curled around Ryan's side. Ryan lets out a little murmur of contentment. Tentatively, Spencer lets his head drop down, resting against the top of Ryan's head. He closes his eyes and hopes the moment will last forever.  
~*~*~*~  
Spencer can remember a time when he wasn't in love with Ryan, in the same distant, foreign way he remembers being an only child or never having held a drumstick in his hand. He's always _loved_ Ryan, of course, but falling for him had been a more painful process: that sudden awareness of the heat of Ryan's skin, a growing curiosity about the taste of his rare smiles.

He'd known better than to act on it, of course, and for long months it had only hurt a little. Sometimes it ached when Ryan had a girl hanging all over him. Mostly the pain came when Ryan was shaking with everything pent up inside him. Spencer didn't know how to make him let it out, didn't have permission to coax passion into pleasure, and he hated more than anything to sit helpless while Ryan suffered alone.

Strange, then, that when he'd finally kissed Ryan in a fit of dumbfounding idiocy, it hadn't been for either of those reasons — had, instead, been an ordinary moment; a moment when loving Ryan was a thing of affection, of joy. They had been bickering amiably, stretched into the late summer sun in Spencer's family den. He can't even remember, now, what they had been arguing _about_; only the sly grin on Ryan's face when he rolled over the edge of the sofa, reaching to poke Spencer on the floor. Only the way Ryan's uneven, adolescent skin had felt beneath his fingertips when he reached up and took Ryan's face in his hands. Only Ryan's mouth soft and rough under his.

The instant after he'd done it, he'd _realized_ what he'd done, become aware of what he _was doing_, and froze, mouth still pressed to Ryan's, holding his best friend's head trapped between his hands.

"Spence?" Ryan asked, the "p" puffing warm against Spencer's lips, and Spencer's hands dropped as if burned. He pressed them against his eyes instead and pretended he could make the whole thing unhappen.

"Spencer, hey," Ryan said, and his _voice_ was smiling. Not laughing. Smiling.

Spencer peered out cautiously, and — yeah, no, Ryan was smiling a small, affectionate smile. Slowly, Spencer let his hands slide from his face, and Ryan ducked in and kissed him. Spencer laughed incredulously and kissed back.

Ryan pressed Spencer back against the carpet, kneed him in the thigh climbing on top of him, and swiped at Spencer's mouth with his tongue. Spencer laughed again and spread his legs, grabbing for Ryan's waist where his shirt was riding up as they squirmed together.

He took a chance and ducked down to nip at the spot on Ryan's neck Ryan had showed him once, the place that felt "really good," and felt smug and proud when Ryan let out a small sound. He did it again, and Ryan made the noise again, all mixed up with a little laugh. It was even better that way.

"No fair," Ryan said, and leaned back just enough to be out of Spencer's reach, grinning down at him. "You never told me your weak spot."

Spencer could feel himself blushing, and he dropped his eyes, not quite able to look Ryan in the face. "I don't know any, Ry, _god_."

"That's okay," Ryan said, and bent down to set his teeth in Spencer's ear. Spencer lay there and let him, wondering, unbelieving, and turning redder, he knew. "That means I get to find them." He licked at Spencer's neck, and his collarbone, and then his hands went to the hem of Spencer's t-shirt. Spencer's hands shoved it back down.

Ryan's fingers stilled, and he looked up at Spencer curiously. "Spence?"

Spencer wanted to laugh it off, but he couldn't somehow make himself let go of the fabric. He squirmed again, in embarrassment this time, and tried to tense his stomach muscles without being obvious about it. Ryan must have felt _something_, though, because the concerned look in his eyes changed to exasperation and he smacked Spencer's hands away from his belly.

"Don't be stupid," he said, and bent down and put his mouth right where Spencer's stomach was bulging over the button of his jeans. Spencer lay still and tried to decide whether he was going to die of embarrassment or of having Ryan's _mouth_ so close to his fucking _dick_.

Ryan sucked a bit of pudge between his teeth and bit down, hard, twisting with his teeth, and Spencer let out a noise he had never made before. Ryan let go and said, "Hah," with satisfaction, leaning down to lave at the mark he'd made with his tongue. "That's one, anyway." Spencer swatted weakly at his head, and Ryan bit him again, a little more gently, before coming up to take Spencer's mouth again.

He ran his hand along the line of Spencer's stomach as they made out, and Spencer found himself making small, soft sounds as he arched into the touch. He could feel a new hardness in Ryan's jeans when he shifted up against him, and his own dick felt like it had been aching forever. He heaved his hips up awkwardly, biting at Ryan's mouth, sloppy with his tongue as he tried to follow Ryan's lead and tried to get more friction and tried to--

His cock started to pulse in his jeans, and he groaned, half in mortification. Ryan let out an eager little grunt, though, and hitched his pelvis up against Spencer's eagerly. It only took him a couple more minutes to let out a soft moan of his own, bucking for a minute and then collapsing on top of Spencer, his head in Spencer's neck.

Spencer raised a hesitant hand and almost put it into Ryan's hair before caution prevailed and he laid it on Ryan's back instead. Ryan let out a contented sound, almost a purr, and nuzzled at Spencer's neck. Spencer, still wondering at it, ran his hand down Ryan's back a few times and tried to get his head together.

After a few minutes, Ryan smiled into Spencer's neck and dropped a kiss behind his ear, rolling off him a groan. He propped himself up on one hand and grinned down. "Pretty good, huh?"

Spencer smiled goofily back. "Pretty good."

Ryan's other hand reached down to Spencer's belly again, and Spencer watched in fascination as one long finger traced an irregular red mark just above his waistband. Ryan had put that there. Ryan had _marked him_. He started laughing again, a little hysterically, and Ryan joined in.

By the time they had their breathing under control, Ryan had collapsed again, his head on Spencer's shoulder, one leg flung across Spencer's thigh. Spencer breathed in the smell of him, sweaty teenage boy and cheap cologne and _Ryan_, and was so happy he nearly burst with it.

Spencer's gone two months without having Ryan nestled into his side and having it back again is so incredibly _good_ that it hurts a little.  
~*~*~*~  
They go out for lunch, just the two of them, their last day in Africa. Everybody else is out exploring the city, but Spencer's feeling easy and happy for the first time in a long while, and he doesn't want an adventure. He wants to go out to lunch with Ryan and _talk_to him. It's been far too long.

They find a pretty place, with outdoor tables and stacks of fish on ice just visible in the kitchen, and Ryan beams as they settle into their chairs. They order drinks and food and sit for awhile, nibbling at the breadsticks on the table and looking around them at the scenery. Spencer kicks a gentle three-four beat into Ryan's ankle and Ryan smiles a small secret smile and doesn't move his foot away. Spencer breathes in the smells of the old, dirty street and the fish cooking; watches Ryan's expression change oh-so-subtly as his eyes drift over the cafe's other customers, the shop across the street, and the people passing by.

Conversation is easy. They start out making fun of Zack and the photographer's reaction to finding a snake in their bungalow, and it all flows from there. By the time their dessert arrives, Spencer even feels secure enough to suggest they start working on new music.

Ryan brightens. "Yeah, that sounds good. I've been--" a shadow crosses over his face for a moment, but the moment passes and he goes on. "I've been writing a lot, lately. Even put together a couple of demos."

Spencer raises his eyebrows. "Just the guitar parts?"

"Well, no," Ryan says, and reaches for his wineglass. "Me singing, just...to sound it out, you know."

"Yeah," Spencer says, and sighs inwardly. The fight over singing lead is going to be a part of the process from here on out, he's pretty sure, which is just a depressing thought. On the other hand, "Brendon's been working on lyrics as well as music, this time, I'm pretty sure."

Ryan freezes for a second, then bites his lip. "Really? Have you seen what he's working on?"

"It's ridiculous, really," Spencer says, feeling an indulgent smile stretch his face, "They're all about true love and happy endings and making good choices right now, the dork."

Ryan's fork drops to the table with a clatter. Spencer looks up from his pie, startled.

"All of them?" Ryan says faintly. "Everything he's working on is about...?"

"Well, yeah," Spencer says, with a small frown. "You can't blame him, now that it's finally working out."

Ryan shoves himself standing with a screech of chair legs, and Spencer has to grab the little table to stop it from toppling over.

"I'm sorry," Ryan says, words tripping out of his mouth. "I'm sorry, Spence, but I can't--I can't work on songs like that right now. I can't--I can't be in this band. Not now. Maybe not ever. You'll have--you'll have to do without me."

He dodges his way around the waiter before Spencer can even stand up, and is gone.  
~*~*~*~  
Spencer's only felt this much abandoned once before: the night they performed at the VMAs, of course.

Ryan had been dating Keltie for three weeks around rehearsals, and they seemed happy enough, but Spencer hadn't been especially worried at that point. Ryan usually had a girlfriend; it wasn't a big deal. Between the girl and Spencer he was usually happy enough, which was what counted.

After they performed, though, and swept off the stage at their grand finale, Spencer turned for their usual post-performance group hug, and saw that Ryan was turned away from the rest of them; turned towards Keltie, who was running to him and jumped into his arms. Ryan caught her and swung her around, and he was beaming, so _happy_, so _incredibly_ happy in that moment, with his girl, _this_ girl, in the air, and Spencer thought suddenly, "I can't give him that."

After a second Ryan put her down and turned to join in the group hug, but that second had been enough. The kind of enough Spencer had never been.

He felt sick and unhappy at the thought of it, but it was pretty clear, all the same: Spencer couldn't let Ryan lose this one.  
~*~*~*~  
They fly home. It's the most awkward thing ever, nobody knowing who to look at or what to say.

Spencer spends two days huddled in bed with the dogs, and doesn't even let himself _think_ about...about anything. About Ryan leaving not just Spencer, but Panic. Leaving the whole band because he was so terribly unhappy without Keltie that the merest mention of songs about being in love made him run away. So terribly unhappy because Spencer had betrayed Ryan's mistake and lost Keltie for him forever.

It had been the terror of Spencer's life for three years, that possibility that his selfishness would trick him into sabotaging Ryan's relationship somehow, and now it had. Subconsciously, he _must_ have been aware that text might be read by Keltie; he should have disguised it better, he should have asked Ryan to call him, he should have been _braver_ and forced himself to _talk_ to Ryan about this thing, this stupid thing where he had slept with a _guy_ after all these years, when he had _thought_ that the only guy Ryan went for, the only guy Ryan would ever go for, was Spencer. But no, he'd been a coward and he'd destroyed Ryan's relationship, after all.

And now Ryan couldn't bear to be in a band with him. It was Spencer's worst nightmare, live and in technicolor, and he locked the bedroom door and refused to let Shane or Brendon lure him out for two days while he lay still and tried very, very hard not to let the yawning pit in his stomach make him cry.  
~*~*~*~  
Spencer had been so happy the morning after Ryan kissed him back that the world had seemed like a beautiful place.

He helped his mom with the laundry, took Jackie and Crystal to a movie, and mowed the lawn for his father, whistling. He would see Ryan at band practice that evening, and they could talk then, and maybe, probably, make out a little more, and after almost a year of wishing more than anything to be allowed to touch Ryan, he _could_. Until then, he just wanted everyone to be as happy as he was.

For the first time in his life, he dithered over choosing clothes, finally pulling on the stupid tight t-shirt that Ryan had given him for his birthday. For good luck. Or something.

Well, it wasn't like it _mattered_ if Ryan knew Spencer was trying to dress to please him. Ryan _knew_ Spencer liked him. Ryan had kissed him _back_.

He walked to his grandma's house with arms swinging, thinking out a rhythm for the song Ryan had showed him last night, humming under his breath.

He let himself into the garage, calling out a greeting, and got two answers--one from Ryan, and one from the little blond bit of nothing he'd had trailing after him for the past two weeks. She was sitting on the old couch, legs across Ryan's lap, and for a moment all Spencer could do was stare. Her jeans were tiny, dipping down in the front to show a familiar irregular shape glowing red on her skin. His hand went to the hem of his own stupid t-shirt, pulling it down over the twisty bruise peeking out from under the tight cotton.

"You figure out what you want to do with that song?" Ryan asked casually, his hand on the girl's knee. It took Spencer a second to remember how to breathe.

"I--yeah," he said, finally, and headed over to his kit. "I'll play it for you."

Ryan kissed him goodnight that night, and Spencer let him. He got to touch Ryan, right? That was what he had wanted.  
~*~*~*~  
After letting himself wallow for two days, Spencer sucks it up and gets on with life. He still feels brittle and fragile in sunlight, but that's no excuse for not going on living. Ryan's leaving the band. There's more to that than Spencer's personal pain.

He checks in with Brendon and Jon. Brendon insists that he's staying with Spencer, that their music is more suited to each other, and Jon says he thinks he'll go with Ryan and give a new project a try. Spencer suspects they talked it out between them before he got to them, but he can't get them to admit it. At least Ryan will have somebody taking care of him, and he won't have to play Brendon's happy songs about love. Surely that's for the best.

He even talks to Ryan, sort of, if you can call passing messages through lawyers talking. If Ryan's leaving, they need to make arrangements about money, name rights, song rights...Spencer talks to his lawyer and works out what's fair, what's an equitable agreement for everybody, and sends the papers over for Ryan to sign. They come back, and he doesn't look at Ryan's signature at all, doesn't scrutinize it to see if Ryan wavered in the signing.

Their publicist calls him and they talk about letting the fans know; he tells her to call Ryan and make sure he knows he can say what he wants and what she thinks he should say. The official announcement goes up, and Spencer gets smashed and tries to remember if it was always this hard to breathe.

With the worst of it over--with the parts where he _has_ to talk to Ryan but he _can't_ behind him--it feels like he's starting to heal, sort of. Almost. He and Brendon record a song; they go on tour. Spencer doesn't let himself hate Ian even a little bit, and concentrates on his own breathing at night in the tour bus without Ryan's snores to set his heartbeat to.

He's still following Ryan's twitter, because he can't _not_. Ryan is quintessentially Ryan there, weird and socially awkward, pretentious and emo by turns. It helps sometimes to go back and read the history of the past few months, to groan to himself over Ryan's fake marriage (and try not to worry about drugs, parties, strange friends Spencer has never met and will never know now).

Ryan gets sick in August, and Spencer gets Jeff to give him extra drumming lessons, running drills until Spencer is exhausted and aching and no longer capable of lifting his arm enough to make a phone call, let alone book a flight back to L. A. to nurse Ryan back to health.  
~*~*~*~  
Ryan's an idiot about his health, and Keltie wasn't much of a nurse. It wasn't that she didn't care, or didn't try, but Spencer had a lot more experience than she did, all right? When Ryan was sick, he felt justified--a little bit, a guilty bit, but enough to go through with it--in pushing her aside so that Ryan got the best care for him.

From their mutual chickenpox in second grade up through hangovers and tour flu in their twenties, Spencer has watched Ryan be sick. Spencer knows how to bully him and cuddle him and spoonfeed him just the right amount, gauging appropriate dosage by the height of Ryan's temperature and the color of his skin. It's kind of killing him now, to think of some stranger, Greenwald or this Z girl Spencer's never met, getting it wrong and making Ryan worse.  
~*~*~*~  
Pete throws Spencer a birthday party, sort of. Spencer's not in the mood for crowds and bizarrity, and anyway since Bronx they've been trying to keep Pete's sort of parties out of the house. Spencer wants to spend his birthday with his best friend.

Spencer's best friend hates him, though, so Spencer wants to spend his birthday with a toddler in his lap and all his favorite couples making him feel alone. Or something. Spencer doesn't investigate the impulse too closely. _Brendon_ is supposed to be the masochist. He makes Pete promise it'll be small, and he can have the baby, and there will be _really good_ beer, and lets Pete handle the rest.

Okay, he also designates Brendon to be the driver, but that's just responsible. Spencer is going to play with Bronx until his bedtime, and then he's going to get _shitfaced_, and with luck he'll be a happy drunk today.

Brendon and Shane wake him up with breakfast in bed and a cardboard party hat, and take him surfing. They make him keep the hat on until the first time he wipes out. Two hours later, they spot the gold foil spangles floating in the wave Shane's riding, and Spencer _really smiles_.

They're a pretty good substitute for what he can't have after all.

They crowd him the rest of the day, shoving him along their planned day of fun, keeping him busy and occupied and generally with Brendon in his lap or curled around behind him or something. Brendon is taking his birthday cuddles duty _seriously_.

Once they played a game where Ryan turned himself into Spencer's birthday present and they had to be skin-to-skin for the whole day, with penalties for every time Ryan let them lose contact. Spencer misses Ryan fiercely and leans into Brendon's arms.

There are already five or six cars at the Simpson-Wentz residence when they get there; most of them Spencer recognizes. He relaxes and leaves Shane and Brendon to haul in the presents sent by various friends who couldn't make it tonight.

Bronx is glad to see Spencer, and Spencer puts a party hat on him because sometimes it is the job of the cool uncle to make the child look ridiculous. It doesn't work. The baby is even cute in a party hat.

Ashlee puts a feathery pink tiara on Spencer's head and kisses his cheek, snapping a picture of him with the old-fashioned Polaroid that is apparently tonight's main entertainment. Spencer sticks his tongue out at her and she snaps another one.

People file in and wish Spencer a happy birthday before drifting towards the beer. Slowly the noise level rises, and Bronx gets restless and unhappy as a forest of legs grows up around him. Spencer kind of wants to just take the baby upstairs and play with him all night, but he surrenders with a sigh and lets Bronx be taken up to bed at nine.

The party's been in full swing for an hour and a half, just a few stragglers coming in and identifying Spencer by the tiara, when a tall, angular figure appears in the door to the living room. Spencer's sitting on the sofa with Brendon sitting behind him doing ridiculous things to his hair, both of them considerably full of beer.

Oh, well, the cab ride home was an inevitability.

Spencer's discovering, to his own surprise, that he is a happy birthday drunk after all. His hair is now braided _into_ the tiara, and people keep hugging him, and so long as he doesn't poke the corner of his brain where Ryan lives, his life is good. This is why when he spots what he thinks might be Ryan's head, he promptly turns to look in the opposite direction. He does not want to become a maudlin drunk, not on his birthday.

The head comes toward him, though, and Spencer realizes that...no, no, it actually _is_ Ryan. Brendon goes still and tense behind him, and Spencer knows dimly that Brendon will have a belligerent expression on his face, defensive for Spencer. He still doesn't quite get why it's all Spencer's fault, Spencer knows. Ryan stands uncertainly in front of Spencer a moment before he bends down and hugs him, tight, tight, _so_ tight.

"Happy birthday, Spence," he whispers, and disappears in the crowd before Spencer can put his brain together enough to reply. Brendon leans forward and wraps his arms around Spencer from behind, pulling him close and safe.

"You okay?" he asks, and Spencer shrugs. There isn't really any answer to that.

"I'll kill Pete if you want," Brendon offers, and Spencer laughs.

"Nah," he says. "It's good that he's here. I always _want_ him here, Bden, no matter how mad he is."

Brendon snorts and leans back again. "Cause _his_ anger is the justified one, here."

"It really kind of is," Spencer says tiredly.

"It really kind of isn't," Brendon retorts. "If you'd been there--" and then he shuts his mouth with a snap.

Spencer turns his head quickly. "Been where?"

Brendon presses his lips together and shakes his head. Spencer turns the rest of the way, gets up on his knees and seizes Brendon's shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. "Brendon — what do you _know_?"

Brendon scowls. "I — that night." He stops.

Spencer raises his eyebrows. "The night before Valentine's, _that_ night?"

"Yes."

"What _about it_?"

Spencer's pretty sure he didn't want to know this before, but there has been, as aforementioned, a lot of beer.

"I didn't--" Brendon stops uncertainly. "At first I thought it...I was kind of caught up in it being about _me_, you know? My problems."

Spencer's pretty sure he can't possibly look as confused as he feels, but Brendon stops and takes a deep breath anyway.

"Ryan was saying a lot of stuff," he says rapidly. "About being ashamed, and not realizing I was in a relationship, and a bunch of other stuff, and I was mad, and I think I knew he was right, that Shane wanted more and that he _deserved_ more, I knew that deep down, and it made me mad, so I kissed him."

Spencer groans and headbutts Brendon's forehead a little. Brendon's a moron, but he is at least a moron who has figured his shit out, so Spencer doesn't have any room to talk right now.

"The _point_ is," Brendon says, glaring. "The point is that — you know, afterward – I started thinking about what he said, and. I don't think it was about _me_. Or Shane, obviously. I think he was just mad about how I was treating _you_."

Spencer blinks. Seriously. _What?_

Brendon's nodding rapidfire now. "The more I thought about his actual _words_ the more it seemed like it was about _you_, about how I didn't _deserve_ you, and, like, I think that was why he kissed me back. Because he was mad. And he definitely left marks, I mean — I'm pretty sure he meant to send me home all covered in evidence. I think he _wanted_ you to know."

Spencer sits back on his heels. This is...this is way too much information to process on so much beer.

It's at this point the music cuts out and Pete gets on the karaoke mike. "Okay, everybody," he says. "Settle down, here. It's time for the birthday boy to open his presents!"

Spencer groans, but the whole crowd is already turning to look, so all he can really do is throw a napkin at Pete when he brings over the first gift from the pile on a table in the corner. Pete ducks and laughs.

It's a big, flat box with striped paper; one of the ones Shane and Brendon brought in from the car, Spencer's pretty sure. The little scrap of paper taped to it reads "Happy B-Day! ♥, Bden and Shane."

"Thanks, guys," Spencer says, and rips into it. Inside the box is a pretty cherry picture frame containing a picture of the three of them sprawled on the beach. Regan took the photo, he thinks he remembers; Brendon's head is on Spencer's stomach and his feet across Shane's knees. They look happy and slightly pink with sunburn, and Spencer smiles.

"Thanks," he says again, and hands the photo to his left to be passed around.

He accepts another gift from Pete, and another. He's in the middle of unwrapping the third when he hears a crashing sound. He looks up to see that Ryan is standing almost directly across from him in the crowd, looking angry and heartbroken in equal measure. The picture has fallen at his feet, and people jumped back when he dropped it to avoid the glass, so he's isolated just now, his hands empty.

He looks up and his eyes meet Spencer. His expression changes to one of horrified dismay. "Oh, _god_, Spencer," he says. "I'm sorry. I'm so--" he turns and pushes off through the crowd.

Spencer sets down the gift he was opening and charges after him.

Ryan's on the front porch, trying to wrestle his keys out of his tight pants pocket and run at the same time. Spencer grabs his elbow and swings him around to face him.

"What was _that about_?"

Ryan's face is closed down tight and miserable. "I'm sorry," he says. "I shouldn't have come, I — I didn't mean to wreck your party."

"You didn't wreck the party," Spencer says, and takes a step closer. "I just — what made you do that? Why did you drop it?"

"I just--" Ryan stops.

"Why did you look so sad?" Spencer demands, and takes another step.

Ryan shakes his head.

"We're not together, you know," Spencer says, and his whole body starts to float away from reality when Ryan looks up at him incredulously. Ryan _really thought_\--Ryan was _jealous_.

Of _Brendon and Shane_.

Ryan thought they were--

"We never were," Spencer goes on, and Ryan's expression softens to one that almost seems like hope. "I was helping Shane get the guy, that's all." He stops and watches Ryan watch him for a second. "I knew what it was like, you know? To want somebody that badly, to want — to be the person who makes their life better. And I thought Shane had a shot. I thought if he could get Brendon to stick around a while, Brendon would get that — and he did. So." He shrugs. Ryan is watching him, something complicated happening with his face. God, has it been so long that Spencer can't even read him anymore?

"I knew what it was like," he says again, and stops to breathe a moment, then starts over. "I _know_. I have since — since forever. Since I was _fifteen years old_, Ryan, I've known what it was like to want that and not to have it, not to be _enough_. I though Shane had a shot — even though I never did."

Ryan breathes out an unbelieving little hiccup of a breath.

"You _moron_," he says, and snatches at Spencer's head, pulls him close and kisses him, hard and hungry and happy, really happy at last. Spencer can _tell_.  
~*~*~*~  
END PART FOUR


	5. Brendon

**EPILOGUE: BRENDON**  
~*~*~*~  
Brendon wakes up when his phone vibrates across the nightstand and clunks to the floor. Shane groans into Brendon's armpit and flails a little in his sleep.

Brendon yawns widely. "You're _old_," he tells the top of Shane's head, leaning over the bed to fumble for the phone on the floor. "I'm not jetlagged at--" he has to break off for another jaw-cracking yawn--"at _all_." He pulls the phone toward him with his fingertips until he can scoop it up and settle back in bed to read the new text from Sarah.

_hows hawaii?_

**Prty**, he sends back, looking out the window at the ocean and absently combing through Shane's hair with his fingers. **Shn is old. Dsnt want 2 wk up.**

He gets a reply a few seconds later. _LOL Regan says blow him_

He grins and rolls his eyes a little. **Grls nite? Dors Day agn?**

_Hepburn and cosmos and only if u count Ry and Spence as girls_

**i do if there drnkng csmos**

_taking the 5th_

Brendon laughs, and Shane pinches him. Brendon grabs the punishing fingers, and kisses them when Shane glares. Brendon holds up one finger, gesturing to his phone with his head. Shane sighs and puts his head back down with a soft bite to Brendon's ribs.

**not foolin me**, Brendon taps out, aware that he's losing interest in the conversation as Shane's knee inches over Brendon's thigh.

_but theyre making out so not rly watching the movie_

**cosmos grlier thn Hpbrn**, Brendon argues. Shane is mouthing at his ribcage. It's nice.

_u r really critical 4 someone who promised his mom a pic of kissing his boyfriend under a waterfall_

**cosmos grlier thn wtrfll kss. george of the jngl did a wtrfll kiss nbdy mnlier**

_george and ursula never kiss under the falls george seduces her with puffy cheeks ttl FTL_

Brendon considers this for a moment. He looks down at Shane and puffs out his cheeks like George of the Jungle. Shane raises an eyebrow at him and puffs his own cheeks back. Brendon smiles. **they wnt bck n made the bb thr. trst me**

_smartass. go blow Shane hes wasting hawaii. luv u_

**u 2**, Brendon sends, and sets the phone on the nightstand. Shane looks up at him, smiling sleepily.

Brendon slides down the bed to do as he's told.  
~*~*~*~  
**THE END**


	6. Bonus Extras and Final Notes

I have to start out this post by saying just how much I was _blown away_ by the art and mixes that were sent to me to accompany this story. Being all thumbs artistically and knowing basically bandom music and powerchick country rock (look, _my sister drove me around when I was a teenager,_ okay?) I am absolutely astounded by the knowledge and talent and instinct that went into the creation of the extras for _Waiting for an Indication_.

I will never be able to say thank you enough.

This piece is called "The Chart" and was drawn by saint_vee

 

This piece is called "In With Us" and was drawn by slashxmistress

 

_Mix 81_, compiled by iceyrica

You can download it [here](http://www.mediafire.com/?ytcymj2iwiz).

 

**You're Not Mine** \- The Morning Light  
**Around the Clock** \- The Rocket Summer  
**You Used to Hold Me** \- Calvin Harris  
**Animal** \- Neon Trees  
**Easy to Fall In Love** \- Brighten  
**She's Got You High** \- Mumma-Ra  
**Just Stay** \- Kevin Devine  
**There Goes the Fear** \- The Doves  
**Let Me Know** \- The Audition   
**Like Cathedrals** \- I Am The Branch  
**Beside You** \- Marianans Trench  
**Cemetery** \- Say Anything

 

_The Sex is Complicated_, compiled by sansets

You can download it [here](http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SETM2PKN).

 

**Take On Me** by a-ha  
**Falling In Love (Is So Hard On The Knees)** (Live) by Aerosmith  
**Sex (I'm A...)** by Berlin  
**Lover I Don't Have to Love** by Bright Eyes  
**If U Seek Amy** by Britney Spears  
**40 Boys In 40 Nights** by The Donnas  
**I Am In Love With You** by Imogen Heap  
**Drive** by Melissa Ferrick  
**How Soon Is Now?** by The Smiths  
**Michael** by Franz Ferdinand  
**An End Has A Start** by Editors  
**Tristan** by Patrick Wolf  
**Freewill** by Rush

 

**FINAL NOTES**

 

Here's the thing: this started out, the whole fic, in February 2009: a way to write about Ryan's breakup where he cheated with Brendon, but the whole thing was really about how he's in love with Spencer. (In my truest, tinhattiest heart of hearts, I will always believe that Ryan is in love with Spencer, even though I also believe that Brendon and Spencer are married and in love.) I wanted to write about Ryan's jealous comments re: air mattresses, the supreme Brendon/Shane domesticity that was being demonstrated to us at the time, Brendon and Ryan being assholes, and how Spencer and Ryan's relationship might be _insanely complicated_, reciprocal, and essential to how they defined themselves.

Clearly, in the course of writing this fic, which has taken approximately sixteen months to write (it was originally supposed to take two), other things have happened, which had to be taken into account.

It was a little freaky, actually, how events followed the outline I had vaguely mapped out in my head. Of _course_ Ryan and Spencer were on opposite sides of the split, I found myself thinking in one particularly traumatized post-divorce moment, they both blame themselves for ruining the other's happiness. (It wasn't my first reaction, and I don't believe it's _true_, but the thought totally crossed my mind. Because I am a crazy person.) There is no way to convey how much "New Perspective" freaked me out, because to me it read like exactly this story here, where Brendon learns to embrace polyamory and to love Sarah because she's more than just someone who likes having a famous and talented guy as her boyfriend. The song came out a couple of weeks after I solved the Sarah problem, and it was eerie.

The Sarah problem? Sarah wasn't planned for. The Disney pictures came to my attention, I dunno, three weeks after I had planned out most of this fic (it was supposed to be A LOT shorter) and she knocked my whole outline for a loop. I didn't know what I wanted to do with her. Handwave her? Incorporate her? The entire Sarah-Brendon-Shane polyamory plotline owes its existence to my becoming aware of what some people were saying about Sarah shortly after her involvement with Brendon became public: she'd dated other guys on the label, she was going to break his heart, she was just in it for the publicity/money/whatever the hell, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought, _you know what? This is misogynist bullshit_. So she liked to date guys in bands? Was that all there was to her as a person? Let's face it, if I could date Sarah Rees Brennan, I would, because I love books in general and her books in particular and if I could publicly appear at a book signing as the person _she chose_ to share her life with and maybe get a shoutout in the acknowledgements I would die of happiness. It wouldn't be all there was to either me or our relationship, although certainly both the aspect of hero-worship and the aspect of feeling special because the person I was with was special would be part of that.

I fell for Brendon's Sarah, for the fact that she was a nanny (so am I) and her "twitter dat twitter dat" and the way she and Brendon were swapping clothes. I liked that she couldn't stop grinning when she was supposed to be playing dead at Disneyworld, and her spiky hair, and I thought, you know what? If it lasts at all, there's going to be more to it than _just_ the fact that she might get off on being Brendon Urie's Girlfriend. So that was where the part of the story about her came from.

AS A SIDE NOTE: Despite eerie coincidences aplenty, I am thoroughly aware that at many points I have screwed with the actual timelines of reality. I actually stole an old desk calendar and plotted all tweets and blogposts at one point, but I needed more time in some places and less in others than was actually available, so all around, call it an AU just slightly left of reality. Obviously they didn't break up the band in South Africa, because there were tweeted pics of Ryan and Spencer amicably hanging out with Greta and Ryan's new crowd after they got back, etc. (Also, there is no major league baseball in February. I know that. Don't break off our engagement, Becky!) Similarly, as has been made abundantly clear (damn you, Young Veins, and your interviews that kill my rose-colored glasses) Ryan and Spencer did not make up and make out on Spencer's birthday, or even just make up.

Music is totally responsible for the fact that this kept getting written and kept getting written and kept getting written. I had, in fact, almost entirely forgotten about the whole fic when I was driving home, my iPod on shuffle, and a song started that was so _this Shane_ that I started crying because he was so sad and needed to be fixed. New Perspective I've already mentioned. And there are half a dozen others I've kept around just because they brought me back to where I could write this story, time after time after time. Half of them don't even fit the way the story turned out, but I still owe them credit for luring me back and spurring me on. The incredible mixes created by my mixers are amazing and awesome and _so much better_ than anything I could possibly put together, but if you watch this space when BBB is over I'll post the weird semi-mix of songs that kept me writing this fic, just for the hell of it. ^_^

Last but _most_, I will never be able to express just _how much_ my pre-reading team, in particular , , and who commented on _every single snippet_ with helpful comments and reassuring reactions, made this happen. It would never have gotten even _close_ to done without them. I utterly recommend creating a filter for snippets of any long fic if you can put them on it, because your whole story will be a zillion times better if you do. Personally, however, I have to apologize to Maple and Q and everyone else: I'm pretty sure the way I left them in the dark about plot twists means this fic is _nothing_ like what they were expecting the final product to be.


End file.
